Bad Reputation III: Dirty Secrets
by SpadesJade
Summary: A prison transfer passing through Hazzard becomes a hostage situation in the county jail. And when the convict starts talking, HenriMae’s missing seven years start to come to light. Sorry, no Balladeer in this one.
1. Bad Choices and Bearskin Rugs

_**Seven Years Earlier**_

_It wasn't the wisest choice she'd ever made in her life, but it was a choice, and if there was one thing that eighteen-year-old Henrietta Mae Locke knew about choices, it was that there was no going back from them._

_She had hitchhiked out of Hazzard at first, right into Capitol City. From there, she'd taken a Greyhound bus to New York. Why exactly, she was beginning to wonder, but she'd done it and she was here._

_New York had seemed like a fantasy place to her when she was little. In fact, rumors swept about like tumbleweed that her mother had absconded to New York after having walked out on them seven-odd years ago. _

_Reality was such an ugly thing. But Henri-Mae, or Henna as she insisted she be called, was getting used to ugly things. VERY ugly things. So tonight, she was working in this little hell-hole of a diner, hoping to make enough in tips to keep her roach-motel of a roof over her head, and maybe steal some leftovers from the kitchen. _

_It had started out good, but she hadn't been careful enough. The money her father had saved for her, for college, had been a good start but not a realistic finish. Foolishly, she had stayed at the best hotels and eaten the best food and went shopping on fifth avenue, as if this whole thing were a vacation and not a retreat from her broken heart. Money went fast, especially in New York, where everything was expensive._

_She called her father. Now and again, to let him know she was alive. Now she couldn't afford the long distance and pride wouldn't let her make collect calls. _

_She considered going home. There was that pride again. She couldn't go home and face the mockery, couldn't face the "I told you so" looks from the townspeople who had never thought that Cyrus Locke's little girl was good enough for Jesse Duke's golden-boy nephew. She was a troublemaking biker-wannabe and he was a jock who was going to get a full ride on a football scholarship. She was going to spend time in prison and he was going to be surrounded by cheerleaders. Maybe even ones who performed for a team in Dallas._

_No, she didn't want to go home. Home held nothing for her but reminders of that pain. Reminders of what she'd lost, with Bo, with her family…_

_But she was not going to resort to something cheap, like prostitution. She wasn't going to change who she was just so she could live. Sure, she drank…it made sleep easier, and it made her forget for a while about the things that hurt. It made everything go numb for a while, and when she walked around town, she felt like she was partly floating. It was like coming up from a deep, comfortable sleep. But drinking was part of her history. Her mother drank, and look where it had gotten her? Out of Hazzard. That was where to be._

_Still…the growling of the stomach was a strong call. She heard it uncomfortably loud as she came over to her next table. She paused, embarrassed, worried for a moment that the man would think it was flatulence or something. He did look up at her, curiously. She smiled at him, cheeks tinting pink._

"_Sorry," she said._

"_No problem," he replied, flipping the pages of the newspaper he was reading. "You hungry?"_

"_Actually, that's my line," she said with a throwaway toss of a lock of hair on her forehead. She pulled out her order pad. "What can I get you?"_

"_Um…some company. Preferably a pretty girl with an appetite. I hate skinny women."_

_She blinked, and looked at him. It was amazing, how people changed appearance within seconds. He became real to her at that moment. And possibly a little frightening._

_He was lean, but muscular. He had that kind of wiry frame that made Bo Duke look like a milk-fed sow. He was hard and compact, and there were lines of veins under the skin of his arms. He was older, with a wide widow's peak and dark hair that curled nicely around his head without the annoying frizz some hair had to endure. But there was something else…he had glasses on, with dark frames over his eyebrows but clear under the rims, and they gave him the appearance of intelligence and thoughtfulness. And his eyes…at first, when she looked, they were dark and indiscernible in color. Hazel, she thought. But no, they were actually blue, and green, shifting with the light. _

_Eyes were the windows to the soul, after all._

"_I'm sorry," she said, maintaining her polite voice. Maybe he'd give her a very healthy tip and she'd be able to eat for a few days. She warmed up her tone a bit, hopefully. "I'm still on shift and they'd fire me if I sat down with a customer to eat."_

_He cocked an eyebrow. He had a very arch appearance, nothing grubby or slow about him. "And that's a problem? Somehow I get the feeling you get fired a lot."_

_She looked at him, surprised. True, this was the third diner she'd worked at. She had a bad temper, especially when the slimy short order cooks tried to get fresh, or the manager bossed her around too harshly. Mouthy waitresses were also likely to get punched, and that was nearly an instant termination clause. It seemed these places were a dime a dozen._

_One corner of his mouth lifted into a kind of smile, nothing overt but definitely there. "You don't seem like the kind of girl who takes any shit," he added._

_She tapped her pen against the pad. "No," she said. "I don't."_

_He looked to the seat across him. "Come join me," he said. "You're hungry. You should eat, keep up your strength."_

_She contemplated it. Something in her head told her not to do it, to just smile, keep working, be friendly but don't get involved. Sitting down at that table would mean a change, and she was barely getting her feet under her as it was._

If I do it_, she told herself_, it means I won't be going home again.

_Flipping her pad, she said, "If I sit down, who will get you your food?"_

"_Sit down and find out."_

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The Duke cousins were out practicing their fancy tricks for an upcoming race. It seemed how they spent most of their time, but close to a race and they got serious, even behind the smiles and the laughter.

"Sounds pretty good today," Luke said.

"Well, it should, after I worked on it for an hour yesterday," Bo shot back.

"Boy, what you know about cars would fill a moonshine jug if you were lucky," Luke teased.

"Hey, which one of us put in the new tranny?" Bo said, referring to the transmission. Normally, the loss of a transmission would be devastating to a person, requiring large mechanical bills and a ton of stress. To the residents of Hazzard that lived and breathed their cars, it was a natural form of upkeep. Transmissions went reguarly when you jumped creeks where bridges should be.

There was a roar of an engine behind them, and Bo looked up into the rearview in time to see a sleek black motorcycle appear on the road. Before he could pin it down, identify the driver under the helmet that covered his face, the bike had skipped to one side and gone over onto the dirt shoulder.

"Hey," Bo said, concern in his voice. That dirt shoulder didn't last long – it became a shallow bank that turned into a steep bank. Luke noticed it to, and had taken a breath to say something, when lickety-split, the bike picked up speed and rode itself like a rollercoaster car right into the bank, using it as a lopsided jumping ramp. The wheels of the bike skimmed a few inches over the General's hood before landing just in front of it where the road curved, sliding a good ten feet forward and coming to a stop, blocking the road.

The boys were no strangers to road blocks and reacted instantly. Wondering what kind of insane person would challenge them with such a stunt, and then proceed to stop them like a member of the law, Bo screeched the General to a halt. He and Luke were on the window stills, ready to ask what in hell the driver thought he was doing, when the driver obliged by pulling off the dark shaded helmet and to let down a tail of deep honey-amber hair.

She was laughing. "Did I scare you, boys?" Deputy Henrietta Mae Locke asked, one hand on her hip. She was dressed head to toe in the sleek black patten leather motorcycle outfit they had last seen on that "Fed," Gabrielle Stone. Bo could have smacked himself for not remembering the present Stone had made of the bike to Henri-Mae to make up for the "trouble" they caused her.

Luke breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, at least we get treated to a pretty face," he said.

She narrowed one eye at him, her smile never fading. She looked happy. Her cheeks were flush with the excitement of the jump, but her breath was even. "Cute," she said, "but it won't get you out of a ticket."

"Ticket!" both cousins shouted at once. "What are you talking about!" Luke said, while Bo, at the same time exclaimed, "Henri-Mae, that isn't fair!"

Her lips twisted, holding the smile as the ticket pad came out. She unzipped the top of the fitted jacket to reveal she was in fact wearing her blue deputy shirt underneath it. "Sorry boys, you were speeding, and it's Hogg's orders."

"But that's entrapment!" Luke insisted, while Bo just stared at her, looking for some hint of malice, something he could bring up and point out that she had called a truce with him, that they were no longer at each other's throats.

She finished writing the ticket and slipped off the bike, walking over and handing it to Bo. "What can I say?" she said with a shrug. "See you when you come to pay it." With another small, amused grin at Bo, she headed back for her bike.

"I thought we were friends now," Bo finally said, his voice a bit more pathetic than he'd planned.

She got onto the bike. "Don't push your luck, Duke boy," she said, but there was still that benevolent mirth there, and a twinkle in her eye. "I'm still a member of the law…and the law around here doesn't like you." She revved up the bike and took off.

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When Henri-Mae arrived at the office and went downstairs to the holding pen, Lula Marie was there, eyeing the inside of the jail cell. "Man, this place is ancient," she muttered.

"What brings you down here Lula?" Henri-Mae asked, tossing down her helmet on her desk, slinging her jacket over the back of the chair. "Usually people have the doors closed after them in there, and they don't go in willingly."

"Hogg asked me to come by a few days ago," Lula Marie replied, scribbling some notes down on a pad she kept in her pocket.

"What for?" Henri-Mae smirked. "He looking for the cheapest coat of paint?"

"Actually," Lula Marie said, stepping out, "I think I may have talked Hogg into some higher end security."

"Whatever for?" the other asked, surprised. "The most dangerous criminals we ever get in there are the Duke boys."

Lula Marie returned her earlier smirk. "Yeah, I know how much fun that is for you. But seriously, there's been talk of a new Federal Penitentiary opening up downstate, and there's been a lot of talk about transporting prisoners by ground through Hazzard. Boss is more than willing to take the fee for holding a dangerous felon for a night, but until he gets this place updated it won't happen."

"Well, we can't let Chikasaw County have all the glory," Henri-Mae mumbled, and then paused. "Talk from where?"

"If you'd get on the internet like the rest of the world," Lula Marie said, "you'd know. I keep trying to get Boss to let a cable company in here, just so we'd have access to some decent news, but he's got something against it."

"Doesn't want people to know that the world outside of Hazzard isn't nearly as corrupt," Henri-Mae said. "Besides, Boss likes everybody minding their own business. 'Cept him, of course."

"Of course," Lula Marie echoed. "Well, the way I see it," and she began rattling off a series of numbers and phrases that Henri-Mae could barely follow, let alone understand. "That should about do it. Boss is going to shit a brick when he hears how much it will cost."

"Do what I did when he bought the last one of my daddy's homemade bearskin rugs," Henri-Mae suggested. "Tell him what it is in euros. It won't sound nearly so bad."

"You sold Boss one of your father's bearskin rugs?"

"How do you think I was able to afford my shiny leather motorcycle outfit?" Henri-Mae replied.

Lula was shocked. "I didn't know there were any of those rugs left, except for the one you kept. Your father had a real hand at that, I'm surprised he never just went into business."

"I'm glad he didn't, I had to eat bear meat for four months solid every time he'd trap one. Hated letting anything go to waste. Anyway, I found one in the cellar when I was cleaning the place out," she said, then stood up and stretched, pointedly changing the subject. "I can't wait for someone like Danny Farrell to try messing with me again. He won't know what hit him."

"Ah, I always miss the excitement," Lula Marie said, just as a round man in a white suit appeared in the doorway.

"Well well, the prodigal has returned," Boss said, looking at Henri-Mae. He chomped on the end of his cigar. "Did you enjoy your time off, deputy?"

"Pretty much," Henri-Mae said. Boss was still a little sore at her for making him let her take two week with pay, but he'd get over it eventually.

"Well, too bad, 'cuz it's over." He turned to Lula Marie. "What's the damage, Ms. Pricket?"

"I'll haggle the price down for you," Lula Marie replied, "but there's still the matter of my finder's fee—"

"Whatever it takes, Ms. Pricket," Boss said quickly, "and do it soon. I've already spoke to the Federal Office in Atlanta and they have a prisoner set to come through middle of next week. We need this office up to specs as soon as possible."

"_That _quick is going to be _expensive_," Lula Marie stated.

"I don't care," Boss said.

"You don't?" Henri-Mae echoed. "You must be making a killing off this one, Boss."

Lula Marie rolled her eyes. "Bad joke," she muttered.

Boss looked rather smug. "It seems that my cooperative attitude with the Penitentiary system is going to earn me a few friends in high places. But they're starting us off with a nasty piece of work named Peter McCabe. We gotta be ready if we wanna keep the money rolling in."

Boss shoved his cigar back into his mouth and waddled back up the stairs. Lula Marie watched him go, shaking her head. When he was out of earshot, she said, "Can you believe that man? We're talking about the worst of the worst, and all he can see are dollar signs." She paused, Henri-Mae's expression catching her eye. "What's wrong, Henri?" she asked.

The deputy had blanched, her eyes distant. "Did he say Peter McCabe?" she asked, her voice very low and quiet.

"Think so," Lula Marie said. "Henri-Mae, you need to sit down?"

"Uh, yeah, thanks," Henri-Mae said, but she perched on the edge of her desk, right there, not moving.


	2. A Perfect Recipie For Trouble

"Peter McCabe," Rosco muttered, flipping through the file. Enos, Cletus, and Henri-Mae were lined up, but while the two men were at attention, Henri-Mae was looking into the distance, her cheeks absent of their rosy hue. She hadn't been sleeping much lately, and it showed in the dark raccoon circles under her eyes.

"This here's a mean fella," Rosco went on, oblivious. "Long history, in and out of the clink for short stints, then was put down for the three strikes rule. Only the third time he'd killed two people in a convenience store. And he wasn't even robbin' it. The guy ripped off his change and he went ballistic. Killed the clerk with his bare hands, and a little old lady took a blow to the head in the backlash. Turns out he was responsible for a lot of killin' and he wasn't never charged with it, but in the pen, they had to put him in solitary for aggressive and…so…so-see-o…"

"Socio-pathic behavior," Henri-Mae muttered.

"Real nut job," Rosco said. "Dangerous. He's got about three armed guards and two U.S. Marshals with him and we'll be putting them up for the night in this here jail. Henrietta, you and Cletus are gonna go set up the cots. Enos, you're with me. They're due here in about an hour. Bogg Hogg wasn't no mistakes."

Henri-Mae brought her eyes up to Rosco, heavily shaded as they were by the brim of her hat. "This is the stupidest way to make money I've ever heard."

"Hush, Henrietta," Rosco said, his voice more edgy than normal when it came to her. "Some things are more important than money."

"Like favors," Boss said, entering the room. "This one is going to do me good for a long time."

"Boss, this is a bad idea," Enos said, with his usual hesitant deferral. "This man is dangerous. I mean, he's killed people, and we're just a little old county jail—"

"Oh, tut, _tut_," Boss said, coming closer. "Hasn't all that time in La La land widened your horizons? Besides, we got all that new fancy equipment in the holding cells, what could go wrong?"

Henri-Mae didn't even have the heart to roll her eyes. It didn't go unnoticed.

"Henrietta, will you buck up?" Rosco said. "This'll be over before you know it. You know, you knew this kinda work wasn't all sunshine and lollipops when you took it!"

"We get lollipops?" Cletus muttered.

"Hush, you dipstick, and go set up the cots!" Rosco ordered. With a shrug, Cletus obeyed, unfazed. "Henrietta?" Rosco prompted, only a little bit gentler.

She looked at him for a long moment, and then followed Cletus from the room.

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"J.D.'s had some crazy ideas before," Jesse Duke said from where he stood at the grill, getting lunch ready, "but this is probably the worst."

"Worse than the time he tried to brainwash Bo when he had amnesia into thinking he was Boss' son?" Daisy asked from the table.

"Worse than the time he set Rosco up with false injuries to sue us so that we'd lose the farm?" Bo asked from where he was finishing chopping wood.

"Worse than the time he tried to rent out the county jailasa meeting place formost notorious mobsters in the country?" Luke finished, bringing out the lemonade.

"Worse than all three of those times put together," Uncle Jesse snapped, "with sprinkles of signing his property over to Hughie Hogg on top! Someone could get hurt with a criminal that dangerous passing through Hazzard, I don't care how secure they think he is. Hazzard is a hotspot for that kind of trouble and he's just inviting it in."

"I've heard rumors about this guy," Luke said, "and some stuff that was in the Atlanta papers. Said he's got a history before he ever got caught. One of those kind of guys who could seem normal like anybody else."

"What, like a serial killer?" Daisy asked.

All three looked at her. Bo looked like he might be sick. "Please, Luke, tell me it ain't like that. Hazzard's had its share of bad types, but…"

"All I know is that this guy is very dangerous, and very smart," Luke said. "The worst kind of combination."

"Sounds like a perfect recipe for trouble," Daisy muttered.

"Yeah, but not the kind we wanna be involved in," Jesse said, his tone grave.

"We can't just leave Hazzard open to this kind of thing," Bo said. His thoughts drifted to Henri-Mae, and visions of a large, slobbering, ape-like man threatening her. Or worse, someone like Danny Farrell, without the restraint.

Jesse sighed, deeply. "Now boys, I've raised you to look out for the people around you, and to be good neighbors, but the best thing you could probably do is just let the law handle this on its own. They're not bringing that guy in here without some armed guards and I imagine they're equipped to deal with trouble if it should happen. I want you to stay out of it."

Luke chuckled. "Ain't nothin' to be involved in yet, Uncle Jesse," he said. "Guy's not set to come until late this afternoon."

"Anytime for this kinda thing is too soon," Jesse said. "I mean it, boys. I know you're curious, but I don't want you going down to the jail for anything."

"We might not have much of a choice, Uncle Jesse," Daisy quipped. "What with the habit Rosco has of locking them up."

"Then I guess that means you need to stick close to the farm," Jesse said.

"Oh, come on, Uncle Jesse!" Bo cried. "We ain't twelve!"

"Yeah, if you were twelve you'd have more sense to mind me," Uncle Jesse replied. "I just don't like it and I don't want you near it. Understand?"

The boys looked at each other. What else could they do? Uncle Jesse was the boss, his word was law. "Sure, Jesse," Luke said for the both of them.

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It was hot. The thick, southern kind of heat that was more humidity than sun. The sun had peaked in the sky and was slowly making its way back down, but it wasn't helping. Even the longer patches of shade seemed to sizzle.

Henri-Mae relished the cool air inside the jail. As heat had a tendency to rise, it was nice to have her desk down below in the basement, where the holding cells were kept. A mild swell of resentment for the cots that were planted outside was quickly shot down by the simple thought.

He was coming here.

She hadn't imagined this ever happening. She hadn't thought she would ever see him again. Worst part of it all, she wasn't sure if she was upset for the right reasons.

Peter McCabe was a psycho. But he had been good to her. She had no reason to resent him. No hard feelings, no broken hearts. He had never been dishonest or jealous or abusive toward her.

Maybe she was feeling guilty. It was hard to know that you owed your survival to a mass murderer.

She blinked the thought away. She was going to stay as far away from him as possible. But it wouldn't keep her away completely, this job. If anything, it was going to put her in his line of sight, and that was all he needed.

Just one look. Pete never forgot anything. His memory was unnatural.

"Deputy Locke?" came Enos' voice from down the stairs. "Do you need anything else?"

She smoothed down the sheet on the cot. "No, Enos," she called back. "What time is it?"

"About three," came the reply. "You had lunch yet? They're supposed to be here any minute but you can go grab a quick bite, I'll cover for you."

She considered it. Not being there when the truck arrived. Not showing her face the entire time. Doing anything and everything to keep her out of his path. But something in her…just wouldn't let her do that.

"I ate already, thanks," she said as she started up the stairs. "Any minute, you say?"

"They said between three and three-thirty," Enos answered. He looked a mite uncomfortable. "Henri-Mae, I know that this is part of the job and everything, and I know you're made of pretty tough stuff, but still…if you don't want to be around for this—"

"Enos," she cut him off, although in a gentle tone, and with a smile, "it's okay. I didn't spend those two weeks idle, you know. I spent some time with that lady Fed, Gabrielle?"

"Oh." He didn't seem to quite pick up what this meant, but assumed it had something to do with building her strength. "Well, you let me know, okay? This guy…he ain't like the kind of folk we get here in Hazzard. He's really mean stuff, you know?"

She folded her arms and looked at him. "Enos," she said, "can you keep a secret?"

"Sure, ma'am," he said, with a bit of a bashful grin at the thought of her confiding in him. Enos had undying love for Daisy, but that didn't mean he was any less of a man, and Henri-Mae was attractive, after all. "As long as it's nothing too dangerous."

She hesitated, considering. "Well…this guy, coming through…"

Enos waited as she hitched. "Yeah?"

"I've…I've seen his kind before. I mean, the years I spent away from Hazzard. I've seen a lot, Enos." She reached out and patted his arm as she walked past him. "You don't have to worry about me."

"All right," Enos said, but he wasn't convinced. And it didn't help that she knew she'd totally wussed-out.

She didn't have time to dwell on it, though. Cletus was coming through with shotguns in each hand. He saw Henri-Mae first and handed one to her. "It's coming," he said, his voice nearly cracking with apprehension. "The truck is coming down the road."

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It was large and gunmetal gray, like something out of an old movie. Two squad cars, unmarked, followed before and behind it. When it pulled into Hazzard, it caused several stares, but it didn't even hesitate as it pulled up in front of the Sheriff's office.

The men got out of the squad cars, two from each car, the driver armed with a simple handgun and the passenger armed to the teeth. The more heavily armed men from each car went directly to the back of the truck, and one of them slid a key into the door, turning it carefully. He pulled the door open, and instantly a ramp came down.

McCabe came out first. He was strapped to a chair, a wide black X across his chest. His hands were down and behind him, and he was dressed in the intensely orange jumper that most convicts had to wear. It was also ideal for tracking him, should the unlikely opportunity come for him to escape.

The orange washed out his face and made him look paler. Of course, that also could have been the years of being incarcerated. Apparently, prison had not been overly kind to him. The McCabe she remembered had been a bit softer around the edges, his hair a little thicker. Now it was in that crew-cut style only found in prisons and in the army.

He blinked a few times in the abrupt change of light, but adjusted quickly, keeping his eyes squinted in a mixed expression of malice and detachment. His chair was on wheels, and there was a man at each of his shoulders, both of them dressed in dark suits. With a hand at each corner, the men pushed him down, keeping the chair from sliding away and steadying it on its course. The more heavily armed men flanked the chair as it approached the front doors.

Where Henri-Mae stood at Rosco's shoulder, Enos and Cletus on the other side, Boss in the middle.

Another man had been riding shotgun in the truck's cab, and he came directly around and right up to Boss, handing him some official documents. "Mr. Hogg," he said, "we appreciate your assistance."

"Anything I can do to help support Federal Marshals," Boss said with his typical syrupy sweetness. "We've got cots set up for your gentlemen downstairs, but, uh…" he hesitated. "We didn't know there'd be so many of you."

The head Marshal just nodded. "I'll be staying in the jailhouse myself, with two of the guards. The drivers and the other members of my team can spend the night at your local boarding house. We'll take turns on the watch…we'll be out of your hair by morning, Mr. Hogg."

"Fine, fine," Hogg said, stepping aside and making a jerking motion at Rosco, who picked up the cue and pulled the door open.

Rosco said, "Enos, Cletus, show them the way down to the jail cells."

"You don't have an elevator?" the Marshal said.

Boss faltered again. "Uh…no."

"No problem," the Marshal said, without skipping a beat. He gestured to the two men holding McCabe and they spun the chair around, lifting it up from behind and pulling him up the stairs.

As he was yanked past, McCabe looked up. Henri-Mae knew there was no sense in hiding. There was a perverse desire for him to see her, moreso that she could see him.

Prison had been hard on him, cutting deep lines into his face. He'd always had a scowl line but now it was intense and dark, as if someone had once taken an ax to his forehead and the scar hadn't mended correctly. Not to mention the horizontal lines that crossed it. His cheeks had taken the worst of it, though, a carving of a line around his nose and mouth that hadn't come from smiling.

His eyes were sunk a bit deeper into his head, but they were still the same vivid blue they'd always been, still holding that calculating look as he observed and measured everything around him. As they settled on her, he reacted as she had expected.

Pete had never been one for drama. Violence, yes, but not drama. He didn't even flinch, just took her in as he was pulled along and into the jail.

She let out her breath. This wasn't good. And she secretly fought off the urge to go down to Lula's store and get herself a bottle of whiskey to get her through the night. But no, she told herself firmly. In the morning he'd be gone.

She wished it were really that simple.

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"Dammit!" It was rare to see Uncle Jesse in such a temper. "I can't believe this! I never lose track of the date, never!"

Daisy came in from where she'd been hanging up the wash on the clothesline outside. "Uncle Jesse, what is it?" she asked, but the boys looked at her, and she already knew.

"Mortgage payment," Uncle Jesse grumbled, getting the envelope ready. "I let the date get away from me…now it's almost four o'clock and we gotta get to the bank." He looked at Bo. "I suppose the fastest way into town in the General. Let's go."

"You sure, Uncle Jesse?" Luke asked. "I mean, that prisoner is set to arrive and—"

"What choice do we have?" Jesse snapped. "I'm not losing the farm over an extra face in the county jail, we'll just have to get in and out as fast as we can." Under his breath, he added, "Although I'm sure J.D.'s gonna find a way to get us all behind bars over this before the day ends."

Bo grabbed up the keys to the General, trying to hide the smile from his face. Curiosity had been eating at him all day, and he was glad for the mix-up. Softly to Luke, he said, "And just when I was worried I was going to die of boredom from hanging out here all day."

"Don't talk too loud," Luke murmured back, "or Jesse may decide to drive the General himself."

"He wouldn't," Bo gasped, horrified.

Luke gave him a look. "Wanna bet?"


	3. Nothing Ever Works Out The Way You Plan

Disclaimer: Forgot about these. Don't think WB will sue me, do you? Anyway, in addition to the Dukes of Hazzard, which I don't own, I also don't own Peter McCabe. He was stolen from a Michael Keaton movie called "Desperate Measures." He just fit right into the story so I rolled with it. Good flick, you should check it out.

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Boss Hogg was sitting at Rosco's desk, filling out the paperwork when the Dukes came bursting in, Uncle Jesse flanked by his nephews. Daisy had been firmly told to stay behind – "In case something happens, one of us has to be on the outside," Jesse had told her by way of consolation. He looked a bit dazed when Jesse plopped down the mortgage check in front of him, and blinked, his forehead glistening with sweat from the day's heat.

"Lordy, never thought I'd see the day when I'd forget about Jesse Duke's mortgage payment," he muttered, more to himself but loud enough to be heard. He picked up the paper and eyed it. "You sure this check is good, Jesse?"

"Whaddya mean, is it good?" Jesse blustered, part of the routine. "I've paid you every month for the last fifteen years and have I ever passed you a bad check?"

The thing about Hogg was that he was very good at irritating people. Especially Jesse Duke. Sensing immediately that Jesse wanted nothing more than to come and go as quickly as possible, he called. "I dunno…you're gonna have to wait until I call the bank, make sure there's money in the account."

Making highly annoyed noises, Jesse continued to rant at the man as he calmly picked up the phone and dialed. They were too busy to see Henri-Mae slip in through the front door and head directly toward the stairs leading to the lock-up.

Bo, however, didn't miss it. He also didn't miss the frown on her face, the unsure set of her shoulders, and most certainly, he didn't miss that she seemed to miss him, entirely, walking past him as if he wasn't there.

Luke caught Bo's whiff of disappointment and shook his head. "You're amazing, you know that? You've kissed every girl in Hazzard county, done a lot more with half of them, God knows how many daddies have chased you with shotguns, and you're still looking at the one girl who doesn't want anything to do with you." Luckily, he kept his voice low so that the conversation went unnoticed while Hogg continued to upset Jesse with his slow-handed manner. "We're gonna have to get your head examined, Bo."

"It ain't that," Bo replied, frowning.

"Then what is it?" Luke demanded. He'd about had enough with this routine, and even though he'd learned the hard way from the mess with Diane and her traveling car show that when it came to getting between Bo and his latest love-interest, it was a lost cause, he also wasn't about to roll over and play dead.

"I don't know, I just…we talked when that Farrell guy had us tied up, and we sorta…called it a truce."

"Okay, fine, it's a truce," Luke said. "Doesn't mean she's gonna come running back to you."

"I know, she said as much," Bo replied. "I just…I guess I was hoping she'd be a bit friendlier."

"Girl had something on her mind," Luke observed. Then he realized the path she'd followed. Downstairs held a heavy, dark air, as if it were a new opening to Hell itself, and yet she'd gone down there as if with a purpose. "Wonder what it was…"

"Exactly," Bo said.

Luke shook his head. "It ain't none of our business," he said, as much to himself as to Bo. "Let the girl live her own life. She's been doing it long enough."

Bo jumped as Jesse slapped his hand down on the desk. "Told you!" the older man barked, and then turned to leave.

"Guess you're right," Bo said as they turned to follow. But there was something wrong…something coming from downstairs that wasn't right.

Something…horrible.

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Purpose drove her to the stairs. Henri-Mae didn't bother to notice who else was in the office, she was just reassured by the simple matter of there being police nearby. She went down them, the small bounces in gravity causing her shoes to make clumping sounds on the tile.

And when she got to the bottom and cleared the metal grating of the gate, she did not expect what she saw—

A gun-barrel, right in her face. And at the other end of it, Peter McCabe, looking at her as if she were a steak dinner and he'd just spent a week on bread and water.

"Heya there, Henri-Mae," he said in his thick, Louisiana drawl.

Her heart stopped beating for a split second, and when it resumed it went on overload. The shock of it sent a cold flush through her feet, up into her stomach and back into her spine, quickly followed by a rush of blood, causing her neck and ears to light nearly on fire. Her mouth quickly went dry and when she swallowed to moisten it, she nearly choked. "Pete," she managed, worried for a moment she was about to puke. "Pete, what are you doing?"

His face turned even darker as the smile curled at one corner of his mouth. He'd always had unusual lips, not very large but very well defined, puckering heavily just below his nose. "Whaddya think I'm doin', Henri-Mae?" he replied. "I'm escapin'. Been planning it for a while now. Ever since they told me they was movin' me."

She coughed a little, wondering what the hell to do, if she should try and talk some sense into him or if she should turn and run like hell.

It was as if he could read her mind. "Don't do that," he said. "You'll just get someone hurt and I know you'll feel really bad about that." He cocked a pointy eyebrow. "Unless prison's done the same for you as it did for me? Didn't think so, though, since you're wearin' a badge now. Gotta be a funny story, you'll have to tell me all about it later. Right now I need you to take off your belt."

She jumped a little. "My belt?"

"Your weapons," he said, not looking down but keeping his eyes right on hers. "Slowly, take out your gun, put in on the ground and kick it over."

She considered whether or not to obey. He saw it in her face, and sighed heavily.

"Look, Henrietta," he said, "I don't want to hurt you, but I ain't afraid to kill you. So do the smart thing and play along."

With a final swallow, she reached for her weapon and set it on the ground, nudging it over as he commanded. Her eyes went down unconsciously to follow the path it made, and they grazed over the unpleasant sight of the Federal Marshall, whose name she'd never caught, lying on the floor of the cell with his throat cut wide open.

She shut her eyes for a moment, nausea swelling in her gut.

"Now your club," he went on. As if in a hypnotized state, she obeyed, willing not to see anything else, but knowing that the other guards who had been down here…bad things had happened to them as well.

"Good girl," Pete said, even as her face began to contort with the effort it took to contain herself. "Now turn around."

"Why?" she asked, her voice cracking a little.

"'Cause you don't wanna see this." He reached forward and grabbed her shoulder, spinning her so that she flew into the wall. Then he let go, and she distinctly heard the scrape of her billy club against the floor as he scooped it up, and then…horrible sounds. Sounds of men dying. The crack of bones and the snapping of spines.

In spite of herself, she let out a shriek.

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"What the hell was that?" Bo demanded, even as his feet were moving forward. He'd heard a sound, a sound he had heard before, that was familiar to him but couldn't place for some reason. He was going down the stairs, and Luke was shouting at him to wait, and Uncle Jesse was ordering him to stop, but it was too late, gravity had gotten him and he was already at the bottom stair when he saw it.

Someone – it could only have been the convict, from the bright orange of his jumpsuit – had Henri-Mae at gunpoint. He had yanked her back by her hair and had the gun pressed solidly against her temple.

"Wrong party, rube," the man said to him, with a thicker Southern drawl than he'd ever had.

"Shit, Bo," Henri-Mae said, seeming more annoyed at him than she was at the predicament she was in, "when's the damsel in distress routine gonna get old?"

"When you ain't no longer in distress," Bo replied, just as Luke came right down behind them.

"Uncle Jesse, get out! It's a jailbreak!" he shouted up the stairs. Abruptly, the convict pulled the gun away from Henri-Mae's head and pointed it toward Luke, and before Bo could blink he'd fired a round into the wall, right beside Luke's head. The other ducked wildly, spinning around with his arms in the air.

"Get into the cell!" the convict ordered the two boys, aiming the gun at them, Henri-Mae between them. He waved once quickly with the barrel, and then cocked the hammer back threateningly. "Do it!"

Going in a strange parody of a hoe-down circle, Bo and Luke crossed the room and went into the cell that had held the convict not more than five minutes ago. This time when the door clicked shut, there was no question that they were in there for a longer time than they'd ever been before.

The convict turned to Henri-Mae, spinning her around to face him. He waved the gun under her chin, angrily. "Any more stupid things you'd like to do before we go upstairs? Just checking, 'cause I'm sure you'd hate it if this got any more complicated."

She didn't answer, just glared at him. Taking that for her answer, he spun her back around again, this time with his arm firmly around her neck. "Let's go clean house," he rumbled, and guided her toward the stairs.

Bo watched them go, a shout rising in his throat, but something sticky under his shoe brought him crashing back down to reality.

"Bo," came Luke's voice, and it had a strange tone to it, the kind he'd never heard before, but later on realized Luke must have used in the war all the time.

Underneath their feet was a pool of blood, coming from a man dressed in a suit. His throat had been slashed open by a very sharp object, as it was like a gaping mouth without any teeth.

Bo swallowed, hard. "This isn't happening," he murmured.

"'Fraid it is," Luke said, his eyes going back to the stairway, which was now empty, as the convict had Henri-Mae at the top. "And we're right in the middle of it, just like Uncle Jesse didn't want."

"Luke," Bo said, suddenly feeling like a child again, looking to his cousin like a big brother, or even a father. He was afraid, so afraid he couldn't even feel his own limbs for a moment, or control his own voice. "This…this is bad, isn't it?"

Luke looked back down. He couldn't answer.

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The second Uncle Jesse heard Luke's voice, he knew something was really, really wrong. The raw panic there, the fear, was uncharacteristic of his eldest nephew, who was usually so calm. But the order was clear, crystal clear.

"Get out! It's a jailbreak!"

"Jailbreak!" Hogg shouted, throwing up his hands and causing a splatter of papers. Without thinking, Jesse reached out and grabbed his shoulder and started to pull.

"What-what-what?" Hogg was ranting, even as he was dragged along. "Rosco? Rosco!"

The sheriff in question had previously exited the building for some reason, and was on his way back through the swinging doors when Jesse nearly rammed into him with Hogg.

"What in the blazes is going on?" Rosco cried, stumbling and twirling and winding up falling deeper into the room because of the collision. "Jesse Duke, where are you going—"

The gunshot rocketed past them and shattered the coffee mug sitting on the desk. Rosco yelped and turned in time to see the convict in his bright orange jumpsuit, Peter McCabe, holding the gun right in his face, his other arm wrapped in a vise around Henri-Mae's neck.

"Don't move, Sheriff," he said, and then cocked his head slightly to one side. "Looks like the old goats have left the pasture," he said. "Now go on over there and bolt the door."

Rosco stammered for a moment, years of playing the fool coming rushing to the front like a defense. "Uh, it, uh…it doesn't have a lock."

"Then_ make_ one," McCabe ordered.

Rosco looked around. There was a pipe sitting in a corner, leftovers from the updates Boss had had done to the jailhouse to prevent exactly this from happening. He picked it up and slid it through the handles of the swinging doors, firmly shutting them.

"The desk, put it in front, make a blockade," McCabe said. Rosco obeyed. McCabe turned to Henri-Mae. "You guys are just so helpful, he quipped at her. Her reply was to struggle in his grasp, even if just for a second.

"You won't get away with this," she said, struggling to keep her voice calm. "There were still those two Federal Marshals at the boarding house, and those other armed guards. They'll get reinforcements. They'll bring the entire National Guard if they have to."

"Good thing I got hostages then," McCabe replied. "Hey, Sheriff, any other entrances I oughta know about?"

"Well, uh…" Rosco hesitated, his eyes meeting Henri-Mae's. Both of them instantly thought the same thing.

Ever since that ugly business with that ex-con that had kidnapped Boss, held him hostage out in the middle of the woods and then nearly killed him, Hogg had carried with him the ugly scars of paranoia. He went so far as to have Lula Marie install for him a little escape hatch, a door that led to a small set of stairs that went down into an old storage cellar, which let out behind the building, concealed by brush and thatch that Boss let go wild there. The door was well hidden, one of Boss' little secrets, and quite frankly Henri-Mae hadn't seen exactly where it was. Rosco knew, and he didn't seem willing to tell.

She played along. "The Duke boys are always sneaking in and out through the windows in the file room, and Boss' office," she said, resignation in her voice.

"Why thank you, Deputy," McCabe said, giving her a twisted kind of smile. "What's say we take care of those windows, Sheriff? And then we'll go back downstairs, it's a lot cooler down there."

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The guard was starting to come to, but it was too late. By the time he managed to struggle himself onto his hands and knees, McCabe had come back.

"Hey, one of you lived," McCabe said, his voice sounding manically pleased. "Sheriff, drag this one into that other cell with you. Henri-Mae's gonna keep me company out here, so I don't have to go opening and closing the doors, giving you hicks a chance to escape."

Rosco grabbed the wounded man and half-dragged, half-pulled him into the cell with him. McCabe kicked the iron bar door shut behind him, and then let go of Henri-Mae, giving her a shove across the room.

"How gallant of you," she grumbled, rubbing her neck. Then she sank back against her desk, watching him carefully.

"Uncle Jesse got out?" Luke asked Rosco.

"Yeah, with Boss," Rosco replied, sounding a lot less like the village idiot and more like the Sheriff he used to be. "They'll get help, don't worry."

_Don't worry_. How hollow those words sounded.

"What were you planning to do, anyway?" came Henri-Mae's voice, from where she sat. She didn't seem terribly flustered, which struck Bo as odd. "Just walk out of here, in that pretty jumpsuit? I mean, what were you really thinking?"

McCabe had begun to pace the length of the room, the gun swinging at his thigh, but not for a moment did he look like he was out of control. He looked at Henri-Mae, his face growing impassive.

"Nothing ever works out the way you planned it, does it?"

His words seem to stop her. She went about rubbing the sore muscles of her neck, where he'd held her so fast for a decent amount of time. They'd been upstairs quite a considerable chunk of time, her and Rosco pulling every blind, closing and locking every window. All the while avoiding Hogg's little secret escape. And Pete hadn't spoken to her once.

The situation began to unravel itself in her head. So far, no one had guessed as to the connection she had with Peter McCabe, but unless McCabe continued to keep his mouth shut, that might change at any moment. He didn't seem over-anxious to exploit it, and so far he had avoided any intimate references…

"Truth is, I did have a plan," Pete went on, surveying the situation rather calmly. "But things kinda got…complicated." And the look he gave her was meaningful.

_Because of me?_ she wondered. She also wondered if it even mattered. Of course, worse than that, she wondered when he was going to start shooting off his mouth—

He approached her, casting a look over his shoulder at the captives behind bars before coming between them and her, blocking their view. "So how do you want to play this?" he said, very softly so only she would hear.

Words escaped her. Her shoulders went up in a shrug.

"I mean, this deputy thing…that for real? Or you hidin' something?"

She drew deep, calming breaths. The compulsion to tell the truth seemed so ridiculous…"It's for real," she said, as softly as him.

"Seriously?" Very even, as if it surprised him, but wasn't worth getting rattled about. "Hm." His eyes traveled up and down her form. "You look good," he finally said, eyes coming back to hers again.

_In, out, just breathe normally_. "Thanks. Wish I could say the same to you."

He looked down at himself. "Well, prison ain't a nice place," he said dismissively, "but I guess you know that already." Their eyes met again, and he seemed to be considering her, searching her for something. "So are you really one of the good guys, or are you going to help an old friend out, for old time's sake?"

She looked down, her brain blanking. "I don't know," she finally said. "I just don't want anybody to get hurt."

He gave her one of his quirky little smiles. "Well, _Deputy_," he said, a touch louder, "you just make sure everyone stays calm and no one will get hurt."

She nodded. "And me?" she pressed. "What do you want me to do?"

"For now you can just continue to sit there and look pretty," he said. He reached around her for the telephone and picked up the black receiver. "I've got a few calls to make."


	4. Out of the Rathole and Into The Sewer

Disclaimer: The usual, don't own the Dukes, don't own Peter McCabe...and btw, this story has gotten the most reviews of all the Bad Reputation series so far, and I'm liking it. Yeah, Henri-Mae is supposed to grow on you. She always came across to me as very real, someone you might actually know. And thus, she has all these different sides to her, and by the end of all of this...well, that would be giving stuff away, wouldn't it:) Keep the reviews coming, people, the story is all done, it's just a matter of me getting the updates in every few days. I usually wait for at least 3 reviews before I update, so if you want another update quickly, REVIEW!

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"_What do you think?"_

_Henri-Mae wasn't sure what she thought, but there was one thing running through her head, over and over._

You're out of that rathole.

_Pete was smiling at her, a rare thing for him. It rarely ever went to his eyes. She'd been with him for two months now, and he'd suggested on their very first night together that she come and move in with him._

_She wasn't sure why she'd waited so long. Maybe it was pride. She wasn't inclined to live in sin, even with Pete, who was so good to her, in spite of that coldness about him. He told her truly that he liked her. She was a good person, he said. And he clung hard to those kinds of people. A rarity for him in this world._

_Pete worked as hired muscle. His boss' name was Saul Towning, but that didn't mean much to her, not being a local girl. She hadn't much cared, regardless. Pete was a man with a job, and he made good money. He paid for everything – bought her food, even paid her rent last month, and had gone with her when she went to collect her deposit from her slug of a landlord. The fat little man had taken one look at Pete and handed over the money, in cash, no questions asked._

"_I think it needs a woman's touch," Henri-Mae said as she set her bag down on the table. Pete was methodically neat, but it was clinical and unfeeling. Most men who lived alone lived like bears, but with Pete everything was picked up and in its place. _

_The only place that offered any kind of warmth was the small library he had in one corner. A bookcase filled with books that had been read and re-read multiple times, and a chess set made of fine-looking carved stones sat on a slender oak table, just big enough to support the expensive-looking chessboard. It was a dot of color in a bleak world. Everything else was bland, as Pete said he wasn't much for color coordination. He stuck with blacks and browns and grays. _

_Truth be told it was a year of living in her private hell that made the place such a refuge. She'd spent countless nights here, just because she couldn't bear to go back and listen to the violence, look at the stains on the wall, feel the disease itching in the mattress under her that had seen God-knew what. She hated the small scratching sounds of the insects that lingered just out of reach, and worst of all she hated the fact that she didn't feel safe._

_With Pete, she felt safe._

_She didn't expect domestic bliss, and she didn't get it. Pete had made it abundantly clear to her when he'd asked her to move in that he had all kinds of hours, was in and out sometimes for days on end. Someone needed to look after his place, he said, keep it warm for him when he got home. And having her there, he said in a rare moment of romance, was enough of a reason to bring him back. _

_With Pete, she always knew where she stood. She knew his job was unpleasant and that he didn't like to talk about it, and that was fine. Emotionally, she wasn't attached to Pete. It was convenience; that much she knew. Convenience and security. _

_The fact that the sex was fantastic was just a bonus. But there was no real tenderness behind it, not like there's been with Bo._

_Pete wasn't one to push people into telling their secrets, but his quiet patience wore her down. She wound up sharing with him what had driven her out of her small country town and into the big city. Pete concluded quite simply that Bo was a fool who deserved to be put out of his misery._

_In return, Pete got her out of the waitressing business and into something she liked much more. _

"_You need a better bike than that old piece of crap you're riding," Pete commented several weeks after they had set up house together. He'd just gotten home from an extended absence, and the morning with him around was rather refreshing, as she'd felt rather lonely without him. "Don't know why you ever bought it to begin with."_

"_First of all, it was cheap transportation," Henri-Mae said while she attempted to make French Toast, one of Pete's favorites. "Second, it's a lot easier to keep a bike than a car."_

"_And when are you going to quit your job?" he continued, as if he hadn't heard her, stealing a piece of bacon from the table. "You know I told you that you didn't have to work if you didn't want to."_

"_I do want to work," she said, a touch uneasy. Dependence on Pete was one thing. Complete and utter and total dependence was something else, and as long as she had a job, she didn't feel like a failure and a leech._

"_Well, what if I were to say I could get you a job doing something else?"_

_She raised an eyebrow. It was unlike Pete to be coy. He sat perched against the kitchen table she'd bought, one of similar quality to the oak standing table for his chess set, chewing his food, waiting for her reaction. _

"_I'd say, what kind of job?"_

"_You remember last month when you were showing me all those tricks on your bike," Pete said. _

"_Yeah?" Not sure where this was going._

"_You're pretty good at it. You ever do any racing?"_

"_Just local stuff in Hazzard," she replied. "Out there racing is a way of life."_

"_Well, Saul knows someone who runs a track. She hires drivers. She'd be willing to take you on and train you."_

_There was a mild clatter as Henri-Mae put down the utensils she'd been using. The French toast sat on the grill, moments away from burning. "Racing? I could get paid to race my bike?"_

"_This is New York, Henri," Pete said, candid as ever. "You could get paid to do just about anything. Legal or not."_

"_And I take it this isn't legal?"_

_He gave her a look._ Of course not.

"_And you're sure about this?" she went on._

_Pete pulled out a card with a phone number on it. "Kelly Rohurst. Tell her that Pete McCabe sent you to her. The rest, quite frankly, is up to you."_

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McCabe was on the telephone. Henri-Mae was leaning against the edge of her desk, arms wrapped tightly across her chest. The other dead bodies had been dragged to the side of the room where they were mercifully out of sight behind one of the desks. And quietly, in the way that Luke had been trained in his marine core days, he was leading a conversation with Rosco, trying to assess the situation.

"There any way out of here?" had been the first order of business. After thoroughly discussing all the ins and outs of the Sheriff's office – the boys having to fess up some of their secrets, even unwillingly, but the circumstances demanded it – and realizing that they were sealed tight in this cell, the next option became escaping.

For the first time in their very long and rather hostile relationship, Rosco looked deathly serious and pale with worry at the thought. "Boys," he said, "you can't do something like that. This guy ain't like the other kinds we get in Hazzard. This man is dirty and mean. I was looking at his record, and…" he stopped, trailing off ominously.

"Like what?" Luke pressed. He couldn't leave it to guessing, he had to know the truth.

"He kills people," Rosco said. "And he don't think twice about it." He cast a look out of the bars, toward where Henri-Mae was perched at her desk, lost in thought as well as watching McCabe. "Violent and ugly are the two big words I'd use, and I'd feel a whole lot better if Henri-Mae was safe in here with us than her bein' out there."

Bo had said nothing during this entire exchange. He had nothing to offer but outbursts of frustration and anger and occasionally fear. It was a dark day indeed when Bo Duke kept quiet.

Luke looked at his cousin. There was a reason Henri-Mae was out there and not in here, and he knew it – he didn't buy the "so I don't have to drag her in and out" excuse for one second. There was a familiarity between her and this convict, something he couldn't pin down…but saying something to that effect to Bo might have the same effect as taking a match to a tank of gas.

"So there ain't nothin' we can do?" Luke said. "You can't think of anything? Come on Rosco, you're the Sheriff."

"Boss has got it under control," Rosco said. "I know you don't have a lot of faith in Hazzard County's City Commissioner, but he is, boys, I know that, from the bottom of my heart."

Luke watched as McCabe went on in an even tone. The man had a low growl of a voice, thick with a southern accent but nothing local. It could carry and it could stay flat. At the moment, it was all focused into the telephone. Not that it mattered much what he was saying. He was making demands of the people outside, which, as Rosco believed, were gathering to handle the situation.

"I wish there was a way to get a message out," Luke murmured. "Some way we could know for sure who was out there so I'd know who to get the message to."

"Luke," Rosco said, frustrated, "ain't you listenin' to me, boy? What do you think you're gonna do? This ain't no time to play hero. It's too big for either of you, too big for me, I'd reckon its even too big for Boss, so he's gonna get outside help. We gotta leave it in their hands."

"But you don't know that, Rosco," Luke said. "We don't know anything for sure—"

McCabe's voice raised an octave as he made a list of his demands. He was quite specific about what he wanted in terms of his transportation out. Nogames, no dealing with local roads that twisted and wound and threatened to consume all who weren't familiar, he wanted a helicopter and he wanted guaranteed safe transport. The details were technical and made little sense, even to Luke.

Thank God he hadn't threatened to shoot anyone yet. The dead U.S. Marshall and the dead guards spoke volumes. He tossed out the body of the U.S. Marshall first, on his own, hefting the weight over his shoulder like a sack of grain. How he managed to do it without getting shot was amazing, but then again, this was Hazzard. Getting sharp-shooters out here had to take a bit of time.

Luke shook his head. "Unless we know exactly what's going on out there, we really don't know if it's being handled, Rosco. We can't depend on that."

"Luke, maybe he's right," came Bo's voice finally, sounding much older than it ever had before. Luke turned and looked at him, startled.

"Never thought I'd see this day," Rosco muttered to himself ruefully.

"I mean, we can't just go off half-cocked like we usually do. We're usually lucky but luck runs out. This guy managed to kill highly trained U.S. Marshals and – " he waved his hand toward where the injured guard was resting. He'd dozed off, mercifully taking him away from his pain. Maybe. "Whatever they are. These guys weren't playing and he got them all. What chance do a couple of country boys and a country sheriff have against them?"

"So you wanna sit here and do nothing?" Luke asked.

"I think we need to be really, really careful before we do anything," Bo said. "That don't mean we do nothing, but we be damn sure that whatever we do is going to work. I don't want to take a chance with any of our lives." His eyes went to Henri-Mae, briefly. "Any of them."

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Outside, an interesting collective had gathered. When Jesse Duke and Boss Hogg had come busting out of the Sheriff's Office, not much notice had been taken, except it was a rare sight anymore to see a Duke and a Hogg going in the same direction and not chasing each other with either a loaded weapon or an arrest warrant. It had drawn curiosity, but not panic.

Jesse had clamped his hand over J.D.'s mouth once his head had cleared. "We gotta get those other boys at the boarding house."

"We can't leave the office!" Hogg cried. "What if someone goes in?"

Jesse, impressed that Hogg could think outside himself, said, "Get Cletus to stand guard, or stay here yourself. I'll go rouse the troops."

J.D. managed to explain to Cletus the situation, and right away Cletus had gotten Enos involved, and the three of them sort of stood in a shell-shocked panic, watching the doors, as if at any minute that convict inside was going to come crashing out, guns blazing like a Hollywood black-and-white gangster movie. When J.D. returned, the other two U.S. Marshals in tow, they seemed nearly relieved to hand over the situation to them.

A blockade was ordered. All Sheriff cars were brought over and a half-circle was made a good twenty yards from the front door, closing off the street at all angles. The guards were put to the task of making a wide perimeter around the building, and Cooter, never far away from the center of the action, helped set up the wooden sawhorses in ever conceivable direction, to keep McCabe from getting any ideas about sneaking out.

Biggest problem was, there just weren't enough people for this thing. That was where the Marshals came in. One of them practically took over Mabel's position, blocking all the phone lines from the office, and getting any help they could get from Atlanta. Men were promised, but time was always against them.

"You mean none of you planned for this?" Jesse asked the older of the two Marshals, a man who was just graying at the temples named Connor Gregg. He seemed to have more years on him, but not more experience. It was his younger accomplice, thick and muscular with a deep voice and an air of cool about him that was either born of intelligence or sheer arrogance, Sam Brockson, who really seemed to be in charge.

"Contingency plans are always in effect, but…" The other trailed off, shrugging. "How likely was it that McCabe was going to succeed?"

"A lot more likely than you thought, apparently," Jesse returned.

Daisy, who had heard all the commotion over the CB, had come running into town, and soon Shelly from the boarding house, who had been Henri-Mae's friend from high school, with her husband Lloyd, had come over, worried for Henri-Mae's safety. Next came Lula Marie, who seemed to take in the whole situation with a rather somber air, and suggested to Shelly that perhaps it wasn't the best idea to leave her kids with a babysitter at this point. Lloyd left, feeling rather foolish he hadn't thought of that himself, leaving Shelly to fret over her friend in the company of another high-school friend. And then there was Lulu, who was fit to be tied that her baby brother Rosco was stuck in a hostage situation with a very dangerous man who was very likely to kill him. The mere thought sent her into swoons that had to be regularly supported by whatever was around her at the time and strong enough totake her bulk.

All this time, Marshal Brockson was coolly ordering everyone to back away, and actually getting them to do it. In frustration, Boss set up his own little bunker-like area where he could monitor the situation without the younger Marshal asking him to back off every three minutes. It was there that the civilians decided to gather, with Enos and Cletus, the only ones who were fit to be used in this situation, and reluctantly so only because of the sheer lack of manpower, left to carry messages like pigeons. Eventually the task was left to Cletus alone, Brockson having decided that he was too much of an idiot to be of any real use. Enos was put to work like a real soldier, pairing up with Marshal Gregg to position any new arrivals, especially since Enos was a local and knew the area best.

The call from McCabe came quickly, as had been expected, and Brockson was the one who handled it. Impassively, he wrote down the demands, and conferred with Boss Hogg the likelihood of any of them being filled before their back-up arrived.

"We ain't got no fancy stuff around here, Marshal," Hogg said.

"Good," Brockson said unexpectedly. "Then nobody can do anything stupid."

Bewildered by what this meant, Hogg just watched the man walk away, his jaw threatening to start swaying in the breeze.

"What did the man want, J.D.?" Jesse asked.

"A helicopter," Hogg replied when he regained himself. "Didn't want to mess with Hazzard roads."

"That's it, just a whirlybird?" Lula Marie asked. "No money, nothing else?"

"Transport out," Hogg said. "Guaranteed safety, all of that."

"The man wants his freedom," Jesse said. "He ain't got nothing to lose in getting it. He's stuck in that jail for the rest of his life and it makes no difference to him who's gotta die because there probably ain't nothing worse they can do to him."

Daisy, Shelly and Lula Marie looked at Jesse with various degrees of fear on their faces. "The boys are in there, too?" Lula Marie finally managed to ask.

Daisy was more pale than her southern-tanned face had a right to be when Jesse nodded.

"Still," Shelly said thoughtfully, "you think he'd at least ask for money. For a fresh start."

Lula Marie looked at her. Shelly met her eyes. "That's pretty smart thinking," Lula Marie said.

Shelly smirked. "I do have a brain, thank you very much. Not all of us are Rockefellers like you."

Lula Marie nodded. "True, but I'm not a super-genius turned convict, either."

"Super-genius?" Daisy echoed. At that moment Brockson was returning and just coming into earshot of the conversation. "That criminal in there is a super-genius?"

Brockson stopped at the very edge of their circle and all couldn't help but notice him. The scowl that was perpetually etched into his face twisted, changing his expression. "What makes you say that?" he said.

Shelly pointed at Lula Marie. "She said that." Lula shot her a look.

"You always were a gossip," she sighed.

"Ma'am, why did you say that Peter McCabe was a super-genius?" Brockson asked her, very directly.

"Because Boss Hogg had me install an updated system for his holding cells," Lula Marie said. "If Peter McCabe was able to override it, he has to have hacking skills. And since he wasn't sent up for hacking, he must have learned it inside. It takes a certain kind of intelligence to master such things successfully when you're confined to a 9 foot square cell."

Brockson nodded. "You're pretty good. Considered a career as a Marshal?"

Lula smirked. The scowl etched on his face cracked just slight in favor of the merest hint of a grin.

There was a growl of an engine and a car approached. It was an older, beat-up version of a Dodge charger, painted blue. It headed toward the small blockade without hesitation, and when it screeched to a stop, a familiar head of smooth blonde hair popped out.

"Tonya?" Shelly called, surprised. "What are you doing in Hazzard?"

"During the day?" Lula Marie continued.

But Tonya wasn't her usually blustery self. Always the center of attention, she was possibly the only girl in their quartet of friends that really gave Henri-Mae a run for her money. It was Tonya who collected the guys in the nightclubs, Tonya who always flashed more skin than necessary…and it was only due to the simple fact that Lula Marie would kill her where she stood that Shelly didn't let slip to just anyone that she worked nights as an "exotic dancer."

To see her in Hazzard so unexpectedly and without a planned entrance was strange indeed.

"You heard about what's going on?" Lula asked when Tonya approached, her face drawn and tense. Tonya nodded, but didn't speak.

"What is it?" Shelly pressed.

"Ma'am, where did you hear…?" Brockson began, but stopped. His eyes went directly to Mabel, who was hanging around the scene, very put out at having been put out of her office. "Would you know anything about this, ma'am?"

Mabel looked away.

"Yeah, it was on the news," Tonya said, and as if on cue there was the humming sound of a chopper overhead, and across town several news trucks were beginning to roll in. "It was a special bulletin, not a lot of information, but as soon as I saw Peter McCabe's name, I…" she trailed off, stepping closer to the marshal. "I'd like to talk to you," she said, "Please."


	5. All Sleight of Hand Stuff

Disclaimer: Don't own the Dukes, don't own Pete McCabe...eh, I'll play anyway.

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Pete sat at one of the desks with his feet stretched up onto its surface, legs crossed at the ankles comfortably, gun within arm's reach but not in his hand.

"So, since we seem to be stuck with each other for a while," Pete finally said, breaking the thick silence that had settled over them all, "why don't we get to know each other?" He looked to Henri-Mae. "Who are these two dashing young heroes who almost were stupid enough to get themselves killed, Henri-Mae? And I ain't talkin' about the Sheriff, neither."

Her breath caught in her throat. "Just local boys," she managed. "What do you care?"

He fixed her with one of his looks. It had been so long since she'd seen it, she'd forgotten it was his irritated face. "I'm just trying to make friendly," he said, his voice a touch softer, which she did remember being a bad sign. "You don't want to, fine."

_Crap._ She couldn't tell him who those two boys were. There was no telling what Pete would do if he found out that one of his hostages was Bo Duke. He could either be completely over it and not care, or…

Pete sighed. Another bad sign. He was growing bored, and Pete didn't handle bored well. "Maybe it's time for another phone call," he said. "Maybe toss out another body. A fresh one this time."

Henri-Mae shifted against her desk. Her arms crossed hard over her chest, she felt the irrational need to shiver. "This is Hazzard," she said. "Nothing happens quickly around here."

"Don't know why, considering you're a mere ten miles away from the Atlanta freeways," Pete commented casually.

Henri-Mae looked at him, a scowl slowly creasing her forehead. "If you know the area so well, why did you make that big deal about a helicopter? Why not just drive out?"

Pete continued to look at her. He had that expression on his face that he'd always had when he was waiting for her to use her brain and figure him out. It had once been a game to him and it was irritating that he still seemed to think of it that way.

Her scowl deepened, cutting lines into her forehead. "A helicopter….it's a diversion, isn't it? You want them to think you don't know the area when you really do. All sleight of hand stuff, right?"

"Good girl," Pete said. "You still know how to think like a criminal."

Henri-Mae paled. There was no way that the guys in the cells hadn't heard that. She looked down at her feet and said nothing, hoping that if she ignored the implication it would go away.

"They'll be all focused on the helicopter," Luke said from where he sat on the thin cot in the cell. "They'll think you're on it, and be chasing it, when in reality you'll be sneaking away on the roads and disappearing into the crowd."

"Your local boy over there is pretty smart, Henri-Mae," Pete drawled. "And he doesn't mind showing it off. I guess I expected you country folks to be arrogant like that, not knowin' the real world but only thinkin' that you do."

"What do you mean, 'you country folks?'" Rosco blurted. "You sounds just as country as the rest of us."

Pete's feet slid across the desk and slapped down on the ground. His eyebrow was raised, a good sign, actually. As long as Pete was amusing himself he wasn't risking saying anything else that might give her away. "I, my hick-town Sheriff, am not a country boy. I was born and raised in good old New Orleans." But the way he said it, just like a New Orleans native would say it, it came out _N'Orlens_. "And when I got bored with that I cultivated myself—" he shot the briefest of glances at Henri-Mae—"elsewhere."

"Mighty fine cultivating," Bo said, his annoyance overflowing. "All it seemed to do was land you in jail."

Pete looked at him. Henri-Mae recognized the expression -- Bo was a bug and he was debating squashing him. "Boy, ain't wise to irritate the man with the gun. 'Less you wanna wind up a head less of your shoulders."

"Knock if off, Bo," Luke growled, and Bo, although his feathers were still ruffled, obeyed.

There was a clanking sound. It would have gone unnoticed if everyone hadn't been staring at each other in open hostility. Pete looked up toward the ceiling, his keen ears quickly focusing on the source of the noise.

"Vents," Henri-Mae heard herself saying. "They've been shut down. Not that they did much good to begin with, the cheap way Boss runs things around here."

Pete slowly paced. His steps were deliberate, calculated, as he searched the cracks of the ceiling and looked at the wire-grated panels. His face was tight and tense, his eyebrows creasing into his forehead in concentration.

"Usually the reason they do that," Pete said, "is to get a man inside."

Henri-Mae looked at him, surprised. "A man inside?" she echoed.

"Yeah," Pete answered without thinking. "If the ventilation system is built wide enough they try to slip a sniper through." He sighed. "You'd think they'd seen enough movies to know that never works." His eyes went to her, before he turned and the rest of his body followed. His grip on her upper arm was firm but not abbrasive. "Come on, we're going to make another call."

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"There isn't anything we can do," the deep voice of the Marshal was telling McCabe, and Henri-Mae could hear it even where she stood on the other side of the desk through the receiver. "The system broke down in the entire building."

"Well then fix it," Pete snapped. "If it ain't back on in an hour you're gonna get another body outside, got it?"

"We're working on it," the Marshal assured him. "But maybe we'd move faster if we had a sign of good faith? Maybe you could release a hostage?"

"Forget it," McCabe snapped, shortly.

"What about food? You've got to be getting hungry in there--"

Pete laughed, short and bitter. "Boy, I went for five days without eating once just to prove a point. How long do you think I'll last when it's my freedom at stake?" And without waiting for the man to reply, he slapped the receiver down.

Henri-Mae looked at him, her fingers lightly rubbing the spot where he'd gripped her. "Did you mean that?" she asked. "Did you really go for five days without food?"

"It was four, technically," Pete said. "Hunger strike. Got my point across though."

"What about _us?"_ she pressed. "Are you going to let them starve us, too?"

"Well, maybe _them_," Pete said, eyes going toward the stairs. Now that they were upstairs and alone, he spoke much more freely, his voice subdued so that sound wouldn't carry. "You? Depends."

She frowned a little. "On what?"

"On the answer to my question from before," he said. "How do you want to play this?"

"I'm a deputy," Henri-Mae said. "A sworn officer of the law--"

"With a criminal record," Pete said with a chuckle. "How did you swing that?"

"My boss doesn't have a lot against criminals, since he is one," she muttered.

"Really?" McCabe's eyebrow arched, a sure sign that he was thinking everything over carefully. "Which one is he, that skinny sheriff down there, or the man in the white suit? The one who smells like money?"

"The fat one," she replied.

"So is he attached to you, then?" The look he gave her was distinctly unpleasant. A mixture of disgust and jealousy. "He your sugar daddy?"

"Ew," she moaned. "Pete, come on--"

"Just asking..." Hands up, defensive. "After what happened with Saul..."

"That was _different,"_ she snapped. "Saul owed me a favor. A big favor, considering I almost got myself killed for him."

"Well," McCabe shrugged, "I always wondered why you'd do something like that for Saul to begin with--"

"Why else do you think? And I never did anything _with_ Saul, I told you that then and I'm telling you now--"

He had approached her, closing the distance between them with swift steps, his movement subtle but purposeful. His arm snaked around her waist and drew her to him, and his mouth clamped over hers, at first abrupt, and then gently.

Shocked, she let him kiss her. Pete had always been a good kisser. He had a firm manner, mouth parted just enough to massage her lips a certain way. His hands went to her shoulders and then slid to her neck, and the familiarity of it was strangely exciting. When he finally pulled away, it took a moment for her to catch her breath.

"What was that for?" she managed.

"What do you mean?"

She looked at him. "The last thing you are is sentimental, Pete. And you sure as _hell_ were never a romantic."

His hands hadn't left her face, and he inched his body even closer to her. She felt the edge of a desk against her rear. "Maybe I just missed you."

Her lips twisted into a perverse version of a smirk. "Missed me enough to come and visit me?"

His eyes flickered and darkened. "You know that was different, Henri-Mae," he said. "That didn't mean I didn't care."

She sighed. "Pete, come on." She placed her hands on his chest, reminded unpleasantly of how well-built he was, of the lean snakiness of him, how he could coil about her like a boa constrictor. "You know it's over, let's not drag it out. Don't pretend that there was some big drama between us that needs to be resolved. You went your way and I went mine and it was fine. Uncomplicated, how you liked it."

"How _you_ liked it, too," he reminded her.

She nodded. "Yeah. Come on, it's not like we _loved_ each other. It was a matter of loyalty, and I kept to my end as you kept to yours. But it's over...and right now you're holding hostages that I've sworn to protect. So what the hell are we going to do about it?"

He put a few feet of space between them, and he was looking at her strangely. He'd often looked at her that way in the days they'd been together and she'd never been able to understand it then, either. "I think I've made it perfectly clear," he said, his voice a bit firmer than before, "that that's up to you."

"None of this was my idea," she said, her voice angry now, her finger in the air going in a circle, indicating the entirely to the situation. "You were the one who decided to pull of a jailbreak in the middle of Hazzard. I'm a deputy, we're on opposite sides."

His lips showed the faintest hint of a smile. "Are we really? Funny, I never pictured that between me and you. I thought if we ever ran into each other again, we'd remember how much we owed each other."

"Or how much I owed you?" she growled, her voice threatening to crack. He couldn't be asking her what she thought, he just couldn't be...in exasperation she turned her back on him, trying to think without his image filling her vision. Too many memories...

His head cocked to one side, his expression slackening. "Henri-Mae," he said, his voice lower now, almost pleading, at least as close to pleading as he'd ever gotten. "You can't be serious about all of this. Walking the straight and narrow? That was never you, not even when you were a kid. You never followed any rules, never did what anyone wanted. When did that change? Since you did a favor for Saul? Or when your dad died? It sure as hell wasn't when that kid broke your heart--which I'd love to get my hands on, by the way, if he shows his face around here. You want me to believe you're here because you _want_ to be? What exactly is going on here, because I don't understand."

She heard his words, but when the phrase, "_when your dad died_" came from his lips, she froze. She felt a vortex of something swirling deep in her gut, a mingling of terror and horror and panic.

"How did you know my dad was dead?" she asked, turning her head slightly to watch him with one eye.

He didn't react...at least, not on a level an ordinary person could have understood. Pete's reactions were always very subtle, part of his training to never let anyone know what he was thinking. But she saw the slight intake of breath, the shifting of his eyes away from her for just a second. "I assumed...I mean, I can't imagine that you'd..." he trailed off, shaking his head. "What the hell does it matter? I heard it from someone, you think you dropped off the radar completely? Saul probably told me--"

"Saul didn't know," she said, very calmly. "No one knew."

"You don't know that, Henri-Mae," he said. "You're not a private little world unto yourself, people hear things--"

She turned fully on him, fixing him with a stare. "How did you know my dad was dead?" she said again, low and calm, willing her heartbeat to slow down. "Who told you?"

"I don't remember. But that doesn't change that he's dead. You don't have any expectations to live up to anymore, you know you're free. Why don't you come with me?" He was talking just a little too fast now, trying to keep her from asking any more questions. "It would be really easy to pull off, I take you hostage, you just never come back, no one will ask any questions."

She continued to fix her gaze on him, feeling something awful well up within her. The words that came from her didn't seem to come from her, as if someone else were using her voice. "Yeah, they're just going to let a mass murderer walk away with a member of the local community. You don't know these people, Pete. They're tenacious. I used to be one of them."

He shrugged, not seeming concerned. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Point is, on the outside chance I do get caught again, you won't have to go down with me. It's practically risk free for you."

She snorted. "Nothing is risk free, you know that better than I do."

"Does it sound so much worse than the little box you're living in here?" Pete pointed out. "Think about it carefully, Henri-Mae."

"I plan to." But she wasn't talking about the plan.

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"And it leads into the building?" Brockson was asking Boss as they looked over a schematic of the Sheriff's building.

Boss dabbed his forehead with his hankerchief. "Yeah, used to be where we'd keep..." he trailed off, and figuring there was little else for it, finished, "moonshine. Pretty secret. Only other person who knows where it is is Rosco...the sheriff."

Brockson looked thoughtful. "And you don't think that Sheriff Coltrane told him about it?"

"Don't know why he would," Boss said. "Rosco's got more sense than..." At Brockson's look, Boss stopped, fingering his hat, which he held clutched in one hand, occasionally both. "Well," Boss flustered, "he wouldn't do that," he insisted.

"I don't know if it's a risk we can take," Marshal Gregg said.

"Not with just anybody, no," Brockson agreed. "We need a specialist. I'll make a few calls."

"Who woulda thought that Boss' paranoia would pay off?" Daisy whispered to Uncle Jesse.

"As usual, everything Boss does pays off for everyone except himself," Jesse muttered back.

"What do you think, Uncle Jesse?" Cooter asked. "You think Rosco blabbed about Boss' little escape hatch?"

"Henri-Mae knows about it, too," Lula Marie said. "Although I don't know if she knows where it is, exactly."

"_Where_ is it, exactly?" Cooter asked her, but Lula Marie's attention was on Tonya, who was waiting for Brockson's attention to return to her. She'd been interrupted from her conversation, confession, whatever it was. She looked as she had when she'd pulled up -- worried and haggard. Lula stepped away from the crowd to approach her.

"What's going on, Tonya?" she asked as she came up alongside her. Tonya looked around, and caught Shelly's eye, but whether it was intentional or not was impossible to tell.

"I can't talk about it," Tonya said, attempting to swerve away. Shelly sidestepped to place herself right in her path.

"What's going on?" Shelly demanded.

Tonya tried to glare at her but it lacked energy. "I don't want to talk about it!" she snapped.

"Don't want to, or can't?" Lula pressed.

"Whose side are you on!" Tonya cried. "My God, Henri-Mae is in mortal danger and you're--"

"You know something," Shelly said. "Out with it!"

"Shut up, Shell," Lula Marie said, the tension getting to her. "Tonya's not telling you anything she doesn't want spread across town."

"I wouldn't do that!" Shelly all but screeched. "Not with Henri-Mae's life in the balance!"

Tonya stepped forward, grasping Shelly by her shirt collar. "Fine, I'll tell you, but if one word gets out I'll pound you into the ground." She paused, gritting her teeth. "Or worse, I'll tell Lloyd about the stripper you blew two hundred bucks on last month."

Shelly paled. "I said I won't talk. I _won't_."

Brockson returned, his pad in his hand for taking notes. "All right, Miss," he said, approaching the trio. "Did you want to talk in private?"

"No, these two...they can listen in. I'm going to have to tell them sometime," Tonya said.

"You sure?" Brockson eyed Lula-Marie and Shelly. He was more than aware of the troubles caused by a cluster of females. She nodded, and drew a deep breath. "All right then, I'm all yours."

"I met this Peter McCabe, once, a few months ago before he was arrested," Tonya said, nervously playing with the smooth locks of her wheat-colored hair. "He came into the club, he tipped really well...I don't know, I thought he was easy money. But it turns out he starts talking about a girl he wants to see in Hazzard. Henri-Mae. He asks me if I knew her and of course I played dumb, but then he says that this Henri-Mae told him about her friend Tonya, and how she'd gone into the big city and all, and he knew my name already, so I was kinda stuck. I still tried to play dumb, but he got mean..."

She stopped, turning away. "It was stupid, really. He already knew who I was when he came in. So he makes me sit with him and starts telling me things, about Henri-Mae being in New York, and about them living together--"

"Living together?" Shelly blurted.

"As in living-in-sin kind of living?" Lula Marie clarified.

Tonya looked pained. "Wonder why she didn't tell you, then...judge much?"

Lula Marie fell silent.

"Anyway, he told me a lot. About Henri-Mae living in New York, all of that." She trailed of, the wind out of her sails. "I didn't tell him much, except that she was working as a deputy in Hazzard, but that was it. I claimed I didn't see her much, she thought she was too good to hang out with her stripper friend." Tonya's eyes briefly skimmed over them both. "Funny about the irony of that, isn't it?"

Very quietly, after a prolonged silence, Shelly said, "Guys?"

They looked at her.

"What if this was all planned?"

No one had an answer for that.


	6. Red Flag

Disclaimer: Seriously, if I owned this stuff, you think I'd still be living in my one-bedroom apartment with the crappy air conditioning?

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_For the first time in her life, Henri-Mae felt like she was where she was supposed to be. And at the same time, there was something missing. Something out of place, and she couldn't put her finger on it. _

_Kelly wasn't the nicest of people, but she was damn good at her job, and Henri-Mae had learned things she never thought possible. Sure, she'd always been good on a bike, but in Kelly's hands, she kicked ass on a bike...and took names. _

_It wasn't a glamorous life by high standards, but being born and raised in the middle of Georgia, Henri-Mae wasn't accustomed to a lot of glitz, and this new life seemed to provide it in spades. She never had to pay for drinks, ate food in restaurants that had cloth napkins on the tables, and had her choice of leather chaps and jackets to wear practically every night. She was like a racehorse, well-kept and properly primped, but driven as hard as she could go when the race was on._

_The work was good. The months she spent sloshing about the lower tracks, taking nasty spills to cheating drivers and learning how to fight back, went so fast she hardly remembered them after her first race on the big track, with the spotlights in her face and the world a blur of blacklit color. And the police raids were only scary the first few times. When she was first put in lock-up she thought it was the end of her life, only to discover that there was an endless well of bail money to bring the star back home. Charges never stuck, but she was never tempted to question how much influence her new employer had over certain processes of law. _

_The best parts by far were the trips to Vegas. Practice in the desert was almost more fun that the most intense race. Out in the middle of nowhere, the tracks could be set up hell-bent on wrecking the most experienced of drivers, and the noise never reached any cops' ears. Racing in Vegas was a bit less intense, more of a spectator sport than a pressure cooker where if the right people won, life was wonderful, and if they didn't, some people would never ride again. She shrugged it off in a glow of high roller pleasures, fancy suites and playing blackjack, at which she had a particular talent. Most of all, she took advantage of the free alcohol, concoctions designed to buzz her so high sometimes she'd wake up and not remember all of the night before. Then back to New York, back to her apartment that she shared with Pete, of which she paid half the rent now. Why she didn't leave, Kelly couldn't understand. Sure, Pete had served his purpose. But Pete had Henri-Mae's back, and she had his. _

_It was a question of loyalty._

_"Whatever you think you owe him," Kelly said to her one evening as they sat in Kelly's private booth, secluded in a corner of a very high-end nightclub, "you've paid him several times over." _

_Kelly was an interesting person. She had a soft and deliberate way of speaking, each of her consonants accentuated perfectly, but never in a tone that could be considered above indoor level. Even when outside, over the roar of engines, she could project that strange soft voice perfectly without having to raise it. It was her most attractive feature by far, as her mouth itself was a bit thin with age. She had once been extremely beautiful, and the vestiges of that beauty still clung to her, giving her its illusion on most occasions. But age and her lifestyle had drained the reality of it from her, leaving only that strange voice of hers to remind others of its presence. Which was enough to fool most._

_"I don't tell you how to dump your boyfriends," Henri-Mae said, sipping her amaretto sour. It was her personal favorite, especially at home. Coming home always seemed to bring out the urge to drink, and lately she'd taken to doing it when she got home, while Pete was still out, doing his dirty work in the later hours of the night. Drinking seemed to remind her of the good times, of the parties and the rounds passed around, winning races and being treated as if she were not just special, but the queen of the damn universe. _

_Kelly chuckled. It had the same qualities of her voice, which most men claimed was the first thing they noticed about her, when it came to the factors of attraction. "That's because I don't dump any of my boyfriends," she said. "I keep each and every one of them."_

_"At the same time?"_

_"That's the idea. You could do the same...I know someone who'd love to meet you, but Pete's got them scared yellow. Saul isn't going to hold it against you if you do, if that's what you're worried about."_

_"It doesn't have anything to do with Saul," Henri-Mae replied. _

_Kelly looked at her. "You sure?" she asked._

_Henri-Mae scowled at her. "Why are you always fishing for dirt?" Henri-Mae said. "Wouldn't you rather have me worrying about winning rather than about boys? That's so high school."_

_"Actually, now that you mention it," Kelly said, a touch slower than usual, "I think we need to talk about winning."_

_"Winning what?" Henri-Mae said absently, chewing on the marishino cherry in her drink._

_"More like, not winning. Your next race."_

_Slowly, Henri-Mae looked at her. "Not winning?" she echoed._

_"A one-time thing," Kelly said with a shrug. "I don't know the details. And I didn't make any promises. I said I'd leave it up to you."_

_"Wait a minute," Henri-Mae said. "You want me to throw a race?"_

_"Not _me_," Kelly said quickly. "I don't really care one way or another in this case. I don't owe Saul any favors, and quite frankly neither do you, but a guy like Saul is someone you'd want owing you a favor. Anyway, it's your decision."_

_"But..." Henri-Mae trailed off. Kelly shrugged at her, doing her best to appear sympathetic, but not much succeeding. "You don't care if I throw a race?"_

_"You don't always win, Henri-Mae," Kelly reminded her. "Just most of the time. And I've been doing this long before you ever came along. Don't worry about me."_

_"But I should worry about Saul?"_

_Kelly shrugged again. "I doubt it. Saul likes you. I'm sure he'd appeal to your friendship long before he'd threaten you."_

_Henri-Mae stared at her. "Would you let him threaten me?"_

_"Pete would take care of that long before I would," Kelly pointed out. "Maybe that's why you keep him around, then?"_

_Henri-Mae didn't answer. She finished her drink, threw down some money (although it was unnecessary, as Kelly never made her pay for drinks), said she would think about it, and left. _

_She caught a cab on her way home, and it was a bit of a ride. She didn't notice much, as she was buzzed pretty good and the world sort of swam past her, wobbly lines of color, reds and greens and blues. When she got home, she found that her mouth was too pickled for any more of the amaretto sour mix and went for straight rum, which put her to sleep. She woke up sometime the next day, realizing that Pete had come and gone and hadn't disturbed her. _

_A little more rum helped put away the hangover, and she showered and got dressed. The sun was already setting -- she had blown the entire day. It wasn't the first time, but before it had always been because she'd been out so God-awful late the night before, celebrating a victory, checking on her bike, out at a party, drinking..._

_She had drunk herself to sleep last night. It bugged her but she shook it off. She called Pete's cell phone and told him what Kelly had told her._

_"Saul wants you to throw a race?" Pete asked, a hint of suspicion in his voice. She paid it little mind, as Pete was suspicious of the mailman when it wasn't the regular guy. Then, he seemed to shift, going in the opposite direction. "I have heard a few things. Saul was going to ask me to bring you by but I guess he decided to go through Kelly."_

_"I'm going to do it," she said, realizing at that moment that she was. Kelly was right. It was good to have a man like Saul owe you a favor. _

_"Fine. You want me to tell him?"_

_"No, I want to tell him," she said. "When can I come by?"_

_Pete's voice was muffled in the background for a few minutes, and when he came back, he seemed surprised. "He says you can come down whenever you want," he said. _

_"All right, I'll be down as soon as I can."_

_Another cab ride, a conversation that didn't last long, and a few more drinks in Saul's warm study during a rainy New York autumn later, and she was on her way to the track. She checked herself before she got on her bike, and realized that in spite of the three midori sours she'd had at Saul's she was still stone sober. She put on a good show that night, and came in second, so as not to make it look as if she'd thrown the race. It wasn't uncommon for her to finish second, or even third -- just not usual. _

_There wasn't a big party that night, and she sort of slunk out of sight, telling the occasional person when they asked where she was going that she wasn't feeling well. She couldn't find a cab right away, and she wound up walking a few blocks away before she realized that she didn't know exactly where she was._

_Then someone grabbed her from behind._

_Pete had long since taught her how to defend herself, and instinct kicked in quickly. She jammed back her elbow, hit something soft that caused a groan, and took off running. Problem was, there were more of them, and they had somehow gotten around her, and she didn't know what direction they were coming from. One had her left arm, the other her right, and when she kicked someone got her by the ankles and the next thing she knew she was sprawled on her back in the middle of a wet alley, the filthy water from the puddles soaking into her clothes as it slid around her leather jacket._

_She was screaming, but it didn't seem to help. Hands muffled her, someone's fingers were in her mouth and she felt cold air where there shouldn't have been any. She was just about to start sobbing in pure fear and frustration when she saw a familiar set of hands wrap around the head of the person hovering over her._

_A quick jerk, and the neck snap was loud enough to echo over the noise. Pete tossed the limp body to the side, pulled out his gun, and started to fire, close range. He got a few of them before the others ran off, like frightened dogs. The smell of blood mingled with the dirty musk of the alley, sharp and acidic. She could hear the splattering of thick liquid, the dull wet thuds of bodies falling. _

_Suddenly free, the pure horror of the situation washed over her, and she started to sob in earnest now, hard and out of control from the shock. Pete tried to help her up but her limbs wouldn't cooperate, she couldn't get herself to stand, couldn't get her leg muscles to respond to her brain's commands. Pete picked her up, amazing her at how effortlessly he hefted her in his arms, and carried her back to familiar ground, where she was promptly shoved into the back of a limo._

_It was Saul's limo, she found out later, the man having loaned it to Pete to get her home as quickly as possible. It simply wouldn't do to take a dirty New York cab, not after she'd nearly been gang raped. And the reason they'd surrounded her was because somehow rumor got around that she'd thrown the race as a favor to Saul, and the parties that Saul had injured in the process had decided to take it out of her hide to send him a message._

_But none of that mattered. Sitting on the back seat in the dim limo she continued to sob, and it had become mostly a giant nervous tick, her throat convulsing, her breath coming out in wet hiccups, her chest heaving with the effort, even her abdominal muscles cramping with the trauma her body was trying to exorcise. Pete sat beside her, at first content to just let her go, and she paid him no attention. When they arrived at their apartment, Pete carried her in, and set her down on the couch. _

_His first action, reasonably, was to remove her jacket. She lashed out at him, swatting his hands away._

_  
"What are you doing?" he asked, but she didn't have the voice to reply. The sobs had softened, but were not receeding very quickly. He attempted to take the jacket off again and she rolled away, tracking the filth over the bedspread._

_"Henrietta!" Pete said sternly. "It's me! I'm not going to hurt you. Now come on..." This time when his hands went to the jacket, he was ready for her resistance, and he peeled it off of her reagardless of her unwilling reaction. She slapped at him but hit empty air. Then he went for her leather chaps, which started her hard sobs again, and this time accompanied by small moans, as now the act was causing her physical pain. Finally, with the soiled clothes off, he tossed a blanket over her and left the room. She calmed again, and fell asleep, only to have nightmares about the alley, about what could have happened to her, and she must have screamed in her sleep because he was beside her again, his arm firm over her torso, and he was whispering to her, telling her she was safe with him._

_Yes, safe with Pete. She was always safe with Pete. _

_In the morning, she took a very hot shower. She took so long, standing there in the steaming stream, that eventually Pete came in and peeked around the edge of the curtain, to find her standing there, her arms wrapped around herself. He tried to talk to her, but didn't get far -- her throat was on fire from the rawness of all her sobbing, and speaking was painful. What words did come out were cracked and hoarse. And besides, Pete wasn't much in the way of sweet nothings and tender sentiments. He wanted her to shake it off. Realizing that she wouldn't, he got into the shower with her. _

_Things from there got weird. It wasn't sexual, but it was far from platonic. He got her into some pajamas, although it was eight in the morning, and put her back in bed. He was in and out for the rest of the day, always keeping the doors heavily locked, checking on her frequently. She spent the day in bed, and by the evening she had recovered enough of herself to crawl out and attempt to make herself something to eat. _

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The Duke boys were just about out of patience. Bo knew something was up the second Henri-Mae and Pete came back down the stairs. First of all, Henri-Mae looked ruffled -- her hair was mussed, her clothes were mildly disheveled, and her lips looked a bit brighter than they were supposed to, as if they were bruised. He'd seen Henri-Mae look that way a hundred times, maybe more...several hundred. When they were still teenagers and he used to take every chance he could get to steal a few private moments with her.

So what the hell had they been doing upstairs?

Worse than that, her expression had turned very sour and internal. She was deep in thought and those thoughts were not pleasant. He was familiar with that look, too, much as he was loathe to admit it. Usually he had caused it. Funny though, it had been coming on less and less, and now that it was back it was like a red flag in front of a bull. Obvious, and bad.

The heat had taken over the jail quickly, and soon all of them were sitting in their own sweat. Shirts were removed, and Bo was down to his blue undershirt. Rosco had pulled off his uniform, and the white sleeveless undershirt he sported underneath was not the most flattering look for him. Luke, never shy about his body, was bare from the chest up, and eventually even Henri-Mae wound up shedding her uniform shirt in favor of a thin undershirt she had on underneath.

She had taken to sitting against the wall, right across from the cells, just behind her desk but not directly behind it. McCabe had pulled out one of the office chairs and had his legs propped up on the desk, the gun on his lap, and while the sweat seemed to drip off him, he didn't shed any clothes. Possibly because the horrible orange jumper was one piece, and that if he did take it off he'd been in just his skivies. As it was, he had unbuttoned the front as far as it would go and still maintain his modesty.

"So what the hell are we going to do?" Bo finally asked, unable to stand the sitting idle anymore. He half expected Luke to shut him up, but when his older cousin didn't step in, he got up and went on. "Just sit around here until we all melt?"

McCabe looked at him. One eye squinted slightly. "You sure got a mouth on you," he said. "And absolutely no sense of patience at all. We're waiting them out."

"Waiting them out?" Bo returned. Henri-Mae had looked up, and the expression her face nearly derailed him. Was she panicking? "Waiting them out for what? What do you think they're gonna do?"

"Well, eventually, they're gonna give in," Pete said, his voice low, his entire body language ultimately calm. "They're gonna give us whatever we want."

"Why?" Bo shot at him. "Because you're some big shot from--"

"BO!"

All eyes went to her. Henri-Mae had shouted the name across the room, unable to help herself. Her expression went from angry to angrier, and then seemed to retreat back into that shell she had been hiding in.

McCabe, however, seemed the complete opposite. "Bo?" he said, a smile quirking his face. Bo felt a mild flush -- this was certainly not the time to be making fun of his name.

"Yeah, what about it?" he snapped, drawing McCabe's gaze back to him. Slowly, it came, and one of those strange eyebrows raised.

"Bo," McCabe said again, his tone musing. "Bo Duke?"

Now Luke stirred. He was on his feet beside Bo as if it would do any good. "What of it?" Bo asked, feeling the tingles of fear finally overtake his righteous indignation.

"Bo Duke," McCabe chuckled, looking back at Henri-Mae. She had pulled her knees high and folded her arms across them, practically hiding her face, save her eyes, which glared at them all. "No wonder you didn't want me to know who they were."

Her expression intensified. "Drop it," she growled.

McCabe chuckled again, a bit more heartily. Slowly, he stood up and approached the cell, and Bo felt the irrational need to swallow. "So you're Bo Duke," the man said, pausing a few feet away from the bars, looking Bo up and down.

"McCabe!" Henri-Mae snapped, warning heavy in her voice. Bo looked to her over McCabe's shoulder, feeling a strange kind of panic. What the hell was going on?


	7. Live Hostages Are Better Than Dead Ones

Disclaimer: Same old same old...and I'm sorry it took so long to get this updated. The reviews have been pretty good. I appreciate those of you who take the time to leave a little feedback with that purple button down there. And a little warning...some bad words here.

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"Damn, I've wanted to meet you," McCabe said slowly, folding his arms. His expression was anything but cordial -- more like a predator finally finding some worthy prey.

"Stop it!" Henri-Mae cried, arms flying out in exasperation.

McCabe looked at her over his shoulder. "You didn't tell me I'd managed to catch the infamous Bo Duke," he said, as if reprimanding her. "How long did you think you could keep it a secret?"

"You bastard," she said, nearly choking now on the emotions in her voice. "You said you'd leave it alone!"

"I didn't make any promises," McCabe said, as if brushing her off.

She was on her feet in a flash, almost charging across the room. "You son of a bitch!" she howled.

He turned on her, stopping her dead in her tracks with a look. "What, you gonna give me a lecture on loyalty now? You have no right to point any fingers at me."

"Then what the hell do you care that that's Bo Duke!" she cried.

His lip curled in a twisted sort of grin. "Because _you_ care, sugar-puff."

She stood, hands balled into fists at her sides, and glared at him, but said nothing.

"Some things certainly have changed with you, haven't they?" McCabe went on, taunting.

"Henri-Mae?" Bo ventured, confused out of his mind. "Do you...do you know this guy?"

She didn't answer. McCabe smirked at her, daring her. "Hey, sugar, you're the one that blew it when you called him Bo. And you were doin' real good before that."

"Whatever," she said icily. "It ain't none of your business anymore."

"Hmm," McCabe hmmed shortly. "It was my business for a long time, Henri-Mae. Seems it's a bit unfinished, isn't it?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Henri-Mae?" Luke put in, finally unable to hold back any longer. "You knew this guy outside of Hazzard?"

Pete smirked. He cocked his head to the side, and said in his slow, Louisiana drawl, "What, Henri-Mae never told you boys about me?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Henri-Mae said, both to McCabe and to the Dukes.

"But Henri-Mae," Bo started, hands on the bars.

"I SAID!" she roared, head whipping slightly to the side to address them, "I DO NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!" Then back at McCabe. "Drop it," she said, her voice much lower but not a touch less angry. "Just drop it."

"I don't know if I can do that, Henri-Mae," he said slowly. "Not all of our history belongs to you, you know. I'll have to think about it."

"Then think about it on the other side of the room," she said, her voice quivering slightly. McCabe seemed to consider this, and then went back over to the desk. This time instead of sitting in the chair, he pulled himself onto the surface of the desk, folding his legs criss-cross underneath him. She stepped back a few feet, going to the side wall this time, closer to the jail cell but not too close, and sat back down on the floor, back against the wall.

And everyone was quiet for a few minutes, until the phone rang again. Without taking his eyes off her, McCabe reached down and picked up his gun, then pointed it at her. "Shall we go answer that?" he asked.

Henri-Mae glared at him, then pulled herself to her feet. Walking up the stairs in front of him, she didn't say a word.

Bo and Luke exchanged glances. "I don't like this," Luke murmured.

"_You_ don't like it?" Bo echoed. "Aside from the obvious, what's not to like?"

Luke turned to Rosco. "Henri-Mae has a criminal record, doesn't she?"

Rosco looked surprised. "How would you know about that?"

"Those feds that were in town last month," Luke replied. "The lady, Gabrielle? She told us. Said Henri-Mae had gone up for grand theft or something. Two years. And this guy is what, a mass murderer?"

"Mass is kind of a strong word," Rosco said uneasily. "But yeah, I guess you kill more than one person and it counts."

"Which makes me wonder what kind of connection those two have," Luke said.

"Luke," Bo interjected, a heavy warning in his voice, "you're not sayin' that Henri-Mae could kill anybody..."

"No, I ain't sayin' that," Luke assured him, but he was tense. "Rosco, what do you know about Henri-Mae?"

Rosco looked pale, and his eyes wouldn't meet theirs. "Boss did a..." he hitched, loyalty to Hogg and the intensity of the situation tearing him in two directions. "He did a background check. There wasn't much...just the charges. She did her time and got out. It was pretty clean and simple, nothing messy, so we didn't think it would cause too much of a problem--"

He stopped when he heard footsteps coming back down the stairs. The trio turned and that saw Henri-Mae and McCabe had returned. McCabe nudged Henri-Mae all the way back over to the cells, stopping in front of the one that held Rosco and the injured guard, who was drifting in and out of consciousness on the lone, thin cot. "Your sister wants to talk to you, Sheriff," McCabe said, sliding the key into the lock with no small look of annoyance. "She's pretty insistent."

Rosco stood and looked at the open door as if it were a guillotine. Then, slowly, he passed through it as Henri-Mae stepped in. She turned and gave McCabe one final glare as the iron bars slid back shut again. Then, in the same manner as he had escourted Henri-Mae, McCabe ushered Rosco up the stairs.

"So you boys figured out a way to escape yet?" Henri-Mae asked in a low voice, once they were out of earshot.

"Gettin' away from Rosco and you is one thing," Bo said, his voice tight, controlled. "This is another. That guy would shoot us without hesitation."

Henri-Mae smirked, but it wasn't directed at the boys. Her eyes hadn't left the empty stairwell the entire time. There was something hard and cold in her face, and it was almost frightening. "Glad you figured that out on your own."

"What's going on, Henri-Mae?" Luke ventured, attempting to be gentle but knowing that subtlety wouldn't do them any good right now.

She didn't answer, just stared at the empty stairwell.

"Henri-Mae?" Bo said, stepping closer, grasping the bars between the cells. Luke wisely stayed back, already having played his hand. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," she said, and it was flat and distant.

"You knew that guy...while you were in New York?"

A pause, and a small sigh. "Yeah."

"And you don't want to talk about it?" Bo asked, his voice even lower.

"Yeah," she said, finally looking at him. Then her eyes narrowed. "He wasn't then...what he is now." It seemed that she wanted to say more, but words wouldn't come. Instead, she went to the back wall of the cell, just under the barred window, and crossed her arms, leaning back. She didn't say another word and didn't look at the cousins again.

Minutes passed in silence. No one knew what to say -- at least, neither of the Dukes. Directness hadn't worked, reverse psychology hadn't worked; Henri-Mae wasn't going to crack until she was damn good and ready. Then, finally, a ruckus at the bottom of the stairs drew their attention to something more solid.

McCabe was practically shoving Rosco down the stairs. He looked extremely vexed, but he didn't stop. He came right over to the cell and opened it, practically throwing Rosco back inside it.

"You two!" he barked at Bo and Luke. "Come on!" He rammed the key into the lock and turned it hard, yanking the door open. "Get over there and grab that body!"

Bo and Luke looked at each other in momentary horror. Out of sight, out of mind, the bodies had nearly been forgotten by all of them, and it wasn't a pleasant realization. McCabe had a good five feet between him and them, and when the boys hesitated, he fired right into the air.

The gunshot was a shock in the previous quiet. He lowered the gun again, aiming right at them. "Next onehurts more than your ears," he said. "Move it!"

The cousins scurried out of the cell, keeping their eyes on McCabe the whole time and their hands in the air.

"Get one of those guys," McCabe said, gesturing to the bodies with the barrel. "Ankles and elbows, boys. Bring it up the stairs, we're throwing him out with the trash."

Luke wasn't not a stranger to death, but Bo was practically innocent. Nausea washed over him in heavy waves as he struggled to obey, and even with Luke bearing most of the brunt he was still unsteady. The worst of it was the smell -- it had been in the room, lowly creeping into their noses, but now that they were up close it was much stronger.

"Come on!" McCabe barked, the boys in front of him, hauling the body up the stairs. Bo didn't hear Henri-Mae calling, "Pete! Pete!" until he was nearly at the top, and he didn't think he'd ever heard her sound so panicked.

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"What happened upstairs?" Henri-Mae demanded, turning on Rosco. He looked pale and shaken, which wasn't terribly surprising, but he was also sweating more heavily than he had been before.

"Lulu," Rosco managed, his voice cracking. "She wanted to talk to me, wanted to make sure I was okay, and then McCabe got ahold of the phone and started arguing with the guy...do you know we've only been down here a little more than an hour?"

Henri-Mae blinked. It didn't sound possible -- it felt like they'd been down here for a day, even more. Every minute felt like an hour. But Rosco was still going on...

"And then he told them he'd send out a hostage, and..." Rosco nudged his chin in the direction of the empty stairwell. "That's what he did."

"Fuck." Rosco might have jumped at Henri-Mae's use of such profanity, but at the monent, it was approriate. "This is getting out of control."

"You're tellin' me," Rosco said. "What about you, what happened upstairs with you?"

Henri-Mae blushed, turning her face away. She certainly didn't want to answer that question. Pete had sidled up to her, acting apologetic -- as near as he was capable of acting, anyway -- about their words before.

"What, are you 'shamed a'me?" he had said, his voice only half-playful. It didn't help that the voice was directly right at the nape of her neck, sending shivers up and down her spine. "Don't you remember the good times we had, Henri-Mae? The long mornings in that old bedroom, when the bedspring broke and we had to put the mattress on the floor? And how we couldn't get the air conditioning to work so we just lay around all day, the lights off, naked as the day we were born?"

"I remember," she said, her voice somewhere between a sigh and a grunt.

"I remember them, too," he went on, and his hand started to play with the line the white shirt made against her back. "I miss them, you know. Those years are the closest I can ever remember to being happy."

She chuckled bitterly. "What, you telling me that I made you happy?" She looked at him over her shoulder, desperate to break the mood.

He'd looked nearly ready to answer. But the phone had rung again, interrupting them. This time it had been Rosco's sister Lulu, and her henpecking voice succeeded in ruining Pete's mood. "Nothing of conseqence," Henri-Mae answered Rosco, shaking off the memory.

As if on cue, the boys came back, both of them looking haggard and shocked, Luke considerably less than Bo, but still pronounced. Pete pushed them back toward their cell, keeping the gun trained on them while he opened the cell door. Luke went in, but Bo doubled over, his hands on his knees, hair hanging in his face as he made strange sounds in the back of his throat.

"Move it, blondy," Pete said, jerking the gun.

"Let me out of this damn cell, Pete," Henri-Mae demanded, rattling the bars as best she could.

"Gonna be sick," Bo moaned.

"Move it!" Pete barked, and then at Henri-Mae over his shoulder, "Shut up!"

"He's gonna throw up!" Henri-Mae said. "You wanna smell it? Get him to a bathroom!"

Bo looked up as Pete glared at Henri-Mae. She caught his expression -- puke or no puke, the boy was up to something. Wildly, she tried to get out of the cell without giving him away -- whether to help him or stop him, though, she didn't know yet.

In anger, Pete pushed the cell door shut, locking Luke in, and moved to unlock Henri-Mae's cell. He got the key in, and Bo made a retching noise that distracted him. "Not out here, stupid!" he barked, and then moved forward to kick a nearby trash can closer to Bo's mouth.

It happened so quickly she couldn't tell what came first -- Bo reached out and grabbed at Pete's ankle to yank his footing out from under him, and Pete kicked at him, getting him in the knee. Who had moved first was impossible to distinguish, but what came second was a very nasty altercation that caused Pete to drop his gun and Bo to lose his footing.

Henri-Mae grabbed for the key, shoved into the lock. She turned it and got herself out, but Pete came flying at her, having been knocked back by Bo's attempts to get back to his feet. He rammed into her and she fell back against the door, right against the key. The key bent, the iron being old and worn, and the door locked in the process, shutting Rosco back in. Then Pete rolled off her and dove toward his discarded gun, and brought it around.

Henri-Mae heard the clicking of the hammer being drawn back. She threw herself forward, in front of Bo, who was still on the floor in the corner. Her arms out, she used herself like a human shield just as Pete righted himself and aimed to fire. "STOP!" she screamed.

Pete's grip on the gun tightened. "Get out of the way, Henrietta," he growled.

"No!" she cried. "Pete, you can't. You can't!" Feeling Bo stir behind her, she pressed back, pinning him in place. "It was stupid, yeah, it was stupid, but you don't have to kill him!"

"Maybe if I do the people outside will start taking this seriously," Pete rumbled, "instead of keep playing these stupid games with me!"

She was breathing hard and fast. The gun wasn't aimed right at her, but it was close enough. Few and far between had been the moments in her life when she'd been at gunpoint, and not a one of them ever felt easier. "Look," she said, "you already tossed out a body...give them some time. But come on...please, put that gun down."

He stared at her, long and hard. His eyes narrowed, and slowly, he stepped back. "Get that key out of that lock," he ordered, pointing at the bent cell key.

"If I move, you'll shoot," she said softly.

"Sheriff, assist your deputy," Pete said, his eyes not leaving Henri-Mae and Bo. With trembling hands, Rosco managed to bend the key back, and it seemed to take forever. Finally, he had it free, and offered it to Pete.

"Get him back in the cell, Henri-Mae," Pete said. "And do it slow."

Obediently, Henri-Mae got to her feet and stretched out, still not taking her body out of the path between Pete and Bo. Rosco put the key in her hand, and she opened the lock, pushing the door back. Finally, she turned and looked down at Bo.

"Come on," she said soflty.

He was looking at her, and she didn't know how long he'd been looking at her like that, with shock and awe and something akin to wonder in his face. Worst of it was the hope that was there...realizing that she'd thrown herself into the path of a bullet for him. "Why'd you do that?" he managed, so softly only she heard it.

"He won't shoot me," she assured him, knowing that it was only half-true. She had no way of knowing how far she'd have to push Pete before he _did_ shoot her -- it might not be as far as she thought.

The telephone started to ring again. Pete swore, and shoved Henri-Mae into the cell after Bo. She stumbled, and Bo caught her, but she quickly righted herself and pulled away. As soon as Pete had cleared the staircase and was out of sight, she tore into him.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" she hissed, sharp and high, almost to the point where it hurt her throat.

Bo opened his mouth to answer, and found nothing. It was stupid. Even the look on Luke's face said so, as he wasn't rushing in to defend him.

"Your _yee-ha_, hillbilly cowboy _idiot stunt_ nearly got you killed," she went on, louder, sharper, her voice going higher with each syllable. "He would have shot you without a second thought!"

"Not necessarily," Luke said, thoughtfully. "Live hostages are better than dead ones."

Henri-Mae turned and Luke, and he jumped a little at the ferocity in her face and tone. "He would have shot BO," she emphasised, pointing at him. "Trust me."

"How do you know?" Luke asked.

"Yeah, how do you know?" Bo jumped in, ignoring Luke's signal to be quiet. Maybe Luke thought that an emotional Henri-Mae was more likely to give out information than the cooler one from before, maybe he didn't, but Bo was grasping at straws, his pride always getting the best of him. When Henri-Mae just stared at him angrily, he went on, "Is it because of me cheating on you? _Is that why that guy would have killed me_?"

The sudden crimson flush on her cheeks said everything. Now Bo was enraged, on top of his already short temper, and with no reason to hold back, not even Luke, he tore back. "You mean that man wants to kill me for something I did when I was eighteen years old?"

It was practically a scream. Bo had the satisfaction of watching Henri-Mae wince, either in guilt or from the force, either way didn't matter. "It was a long time ago," she said, as if making an excuse, but she hadn't sufficiently calmed down and her voice was still rough and defensive. "I can't be blamed for what I did seven years ago any more than you can..."

"Oh, that's just _perfect_!" Bo felt he was ready to rip into something, barely restraining his hands which had started to fling themselves about of their own accord. "When _I _screw up, you want _revenge_, but when _you_ screw up,_ it was a long time ago _and you can't be _blamed_. How very _convenient_."

She bridled at the open scorn in his voice. He'd never spoken to her like this, ever. "I stopped him, didn't I?" she shot back. "I threw myself in front of a bullet for you!"

"Bullshit, you knew he wouldn't shoot you!" Bo accused. "I wouldn't have nearly gotten shot if it hadn't been for you and your childish need to make me suffer!"

She stepped up, toe to toe with him, matching his flashing eyes and foaming lips. "I told you, it was a long time ago! I had no way of knowing he'd ever come here--"

"SHUT UP!" Bo screamed at her, with more rage and hatred than he'd ever used on anyone before. "It's all about _you_, isn't it! You never stop to think for _one second _about anybody else! Not about _me_, not about _him_--" At this point Bo gestured with his thumb to Pete's wake, "and now look where everybody is! People are dead! We may be dead! And all because you couldn't deal with a stupid mistake--"

She slapped him. Hard, right across the face. She had a mean right hook and it hurt, but Bo was too angry to register the pain. Just as quickly, his hand came out, ready to strike back, but there was another voice.

"I wouldn't do that," Pete said, slow and methodical, tapping the barrel of his gun against the iron bars. Both turned to look at him, not having even noticed that he had returned, or seeing Luke's frantic warnings.

Chests heaving, cheeks flushed, hands balled into fists, Bo and Henri-Mae stared at each other for a moment, something passing between them that was horrible and unnatural. Then Henri-Mae turned on her heel and slapped her hands right against the bars in front of Pete's face.

"Let me the hell out of here," she said, her voice low and breathless.

Pete obliged, looking terribly amused. The second the door was open Henri-Mae charged across the room as far away from the cell as she could get. She didn't sit facing the cells this time, but put her back against her desk, staring at the blank wall.

Pete just chuckled and went to sit on top of the desk she crouched against. "Good news, boys," he said. "Looks like this all may be over sooner than you think."


	8. Conversations and Connundrums

Disclaimer: Same old. And special thanks to my lovely reviewers. I've been waiting for this series to get some regular readers who review and you guys are wonderful. And if you're reading and not reviewing...well, why not? But at least you're reading...or you're visiting, according to the Stats info. But anyway...today starts with a flashback. Three chapters to go.

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_It went downhill. Pete quit working for Saul. He claimed that it was Saul's half-cocked idea to have Henri-Mae throw the race that caused her to nearly get gang raped in the first place. And he turned out to be right, although it wasn't known for sure until after it was much too late._

_The days passed and Henri-Mae was oblivious. She shook off the attack and went back to work, racing for Kelly like she always had. Pete was gone until late and came home smelling like gunpowder, but his schedule didn't change and she didn't realize what he had done until it was over._

_The raid wasn't so unusual. They happened, every now and again, but this time it was much more serious. Every bolt-hole was covered, every alley a dead end. Kelly slipped away in the magical way of hers, but the cuffs were around Henri-Mae's wrists before she could even get all the way off her bike. The charges against her were grand theft -- the bike she was riding was supposedly stolen property. She spent the night in holding and was mysteriously denied bail. _

_They wanted Kelly, it turned out. Kelly and Saul by extension. His affection for the races had made it a weak spot for him. It was a nice little package and they had the crazy idea that somehow Henri-Mae could hand them both over._

_She didn't. They threatened her with all sorts of charges, but a high-priced lawyer turned up, on Saul's payroll. Henri-Mae had half a mind to turn him away -- Saul still owed her for throwing that race, and she wasn't sure if she wanted him to determine the price without her say._

_Because she wouldn't play ball, they were determined to get her jail time. Saul's lawyer, who absolutely insisted on staying, even if he had to do it pro-bono, managed to knock the charges down to grand theft, because of the bike, which was the only real hard evidence that they have. And technically, it was posession. _

_She got two years. The lawyer was devestated that she got even that much. It took days to negotiate and part of the difficulty was the simple fact that she wouldn't fight for her own innocence. _

_The bottom line was shame. The night she was sentenced, she called her father. It was the last conversation she would ever have with him. _

_"Daddy? It's Henri-Mae."_

_"Henri?" Only her father ever called her that. Never Henrietta, rarely Henri-Mae. "Where are you, are you still in New York?"_

_She pictured him as she sat there, in the small room where she was allowed her telephone call. It wasn't even a room...it was a booth. But her father...tall and lanky, his hair having grayed from the vibrant honey-blond he'd always been, age darkening it into a more amber color shot through with silver. His long face rough, possibly unshaven, as he shaved only when the mood struck him, eyes as blue as the ones she saw every day in the mirror. As a farmer, he was almost expected to dress in flannel and blue denim overalls, but her dad was more a T-shirt and black jeans type, going long sleeved in the cooler months, and the black used in favor of blue for the fact that it showed less dirt. Bits of hay possibly clung to his shoulders. His shoes were always sneakers, expensive ones that lasted for years before needing be replaced, and if her estimate was correct, these were in the last stages of deterioration, their former bright soles worn, shoelaces frayed, the white leather on top dulled gray. That was if he hadn't already broken down and had the general store order him new ones._

_"Yeah, I'm in New York," she said, trying to keep her voice from cracking. The impersonal closeness of the booth was mildly comforting, but a stark reminder that she was about to break this man's heart. "I'm...um..." _Oh God, how in the hell did she tell him? Hi, Dad, I'm in jail. I like it here. I think I'm gonna stay. _"I'm sort of in trouble."_

_"What is it? You need to come home?" He wasn't on his feet, but the hope in his voice was impossible to ignore. Next he was going to offer to come get her, but thankfully he refrained for the moment. "What do you need?"_

_She drew deep breaths. "I've got everything I need, Dad," she said, feeling the tears start to squeeze her throat. She hadn't cried since the first days...what had it been, three years now? It seemed like only a few weeks some days, others like three decades. "I'm being taken care of, but..."_

_"What is it, Henri?" There was a touch of impatience in his voice, the kind that comes when one is desperately worried and dying to know exactly the cause of that worry. "What's going on?"_

_Here it came. She hoped she didn't vomit. "I'm...uh...I'm going to be going to prison, for a bit, Daddy." Ugh, the vomit was hot in her stomach, churning and leaping. She squeezed her eyelids, forcing back the tears as her lips pressed and curled against the threatening force. She didn't want to picture the look on his face, but it was impossible not to. _

_"Jail?" It was a whisper, incredulous, and so disappointed. "Sweetheart, what did you do?"_

_Normally, a girl would expect anger from her father. But quite frankly, Cyrus Locke was an extremely practical man. Anger did no good. It hadn't done any good when her mother had left him, and it certainly hadn't done anything to stop Henri-Mae from leaving. Sometimes, she wondered why he didn't make her stay. Sometimes, when she was at her most miserable -- and this moment was more miserable than most -- she blamed him for not being more active. For not taking a stand and forcing his will on others. If he'd made her stay home, this never would have happened. She was only eighteen, dammit, she was still a child! Why hadn't he acted like a father?_

_"I left home!" she shouted. "I left home and came to this Godforsaken place and now I'm in trouble!" The sob came out like a croak, against her will, loud and ugly. _

_"Henri," he said, his voice a touch stern, "you chose to go there. You could have come home any time you wanted."_

_"Well I can't now!" she wept. "I'm going for two years, Daddy! They're gonna...oh God...I don't want to go to jail, I want to come home!"_

_Moments passed. She sobbed into her palm, having clamped it over her mouth, and it sounded to her own ears like a very wet fit of coughing. Hot tears touched her fingers, reminding her of how pathetic she really was. _

_Then she heard something, something soft and warm and comforting. It was her father, his voice low, sounding like he had when she was a little girl and she skinned her knee. She hadn't heard that comforting tone in so long...and she realized now that it was her own fault, because she'd pushed him away._

_She'd pushed everyone away. _

_"Shhh, baby, calm down...breathe. It's not going to be so bad. You're a strong girl, you've always been a strong girl. You have a lawyer?"_

_"Yeah," she managed brokenly, making snot bubbles with the effort. She wiped at her nose with her fingers, not caring how gross it was, and then wiped her fingers on her shirt. "I'm...I'm sorry, Dad." Now came the breath bubbles, the hiccups. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean...I...I didn't..."_

_"I know, sweetheart, I know. Tell me, where are you?"_

_"I don't know the address, somewhere in the New York penitentiary system, they're going to ship me out tomorrow and I can't remember where..."_

_"Well, as soon as you know for sure, I want you to call me again, and I'll come out." There was a pause. "Do you have any number I can call in the meantime?"_

_Oh God...Pete. He'd taken the whole thing with a kind of passive anger that made her wonder why he'd ever gotten upset enough with Saul to quit in the first place. He didn't seem too broken up that she was going away. He treated the whole thing like she was going on a trip, she'd be back, things would go on as normal. And worse than that, she had never told her father she was living with him. _

_It didn't seem like the idea time, now._

_"No, Daddy...I'm sorry. But I'll call again as soon as I can." Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to hang up that phone. The shame of what he'd done, of how she'd behaved, just washed over her. She shrunk into the collar of her shirt, wishing it was a blanket she could pull over her head. "I have to go now, okay?"_

_"All right, baby. I love you, you know. No matter what."_

_"I love you too, Daddy."_

Sometimes those words were all she had.

Bo was right. _This was all her fault._

She squeezed her hand against her eyes, sucking back the tears. Now wasn't the time for emotion. It was the time for action.

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"What's going to happen?" Luke asked, the only one calm enough to ask a straight question.

"Nothing for you to worry about," Pete said with a smirk. "I imagine that I'll just keep all of you locked up in the cells down here...of course, one of you is going to have to come with me as a hostage. Wanna draw straws for it?"

Henri-Mae stood up. She'd been hiding behind that desk for at least the last fifteen minutes, and her reappearance was almost like someone rising from the grave. She looked pale and her eyes were slightly red, but she was calm and collected, and there was a nearly eerie air of strength about her. "No need, Pete," she said, her voice a bit ragged. "I'm going with you."

McCabe raised an eyebrow. He didn't quite buy it. "What changed your mind, dearie?"

She gave him a little smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Well, it's like you said. There's really no point in me staying. Once they figure out I'm connected to you I'll probably be in as much trouble as you are. Truth be told, you're right. I'm just going where I belong."

He regarded her, still hesitant, but hiding it well. "Must have been some pretty harsh words between you and lover boy there," he said, sliding off the desk and slowly pacing toward her.

She shrugged a shoulder. "Just opened my eyes. Made me realize my mistake in ever coming back here." She spared a fleeting glance for the cell, but quickly refocused her eyes on Pete. "Guess it took something really harsh to make me open my eyes."

He folded his arms, lightly. "So you're with me? You're gonna pose as my hostage, help me escape?"

She nodded. "It's a good plan so far. I'm anxious to hear the rest of it."

His shoulders shifted. "I don't know...still seems like a pretty swift change of heart to me. Would hate for you to make a mistake and blame me for it later."

Her smile widened, creeping into her eyes, making the blue warm and melt. She stepped a touch closer to him, and said, her voice low, not too sultry, "The real mistake I made, Pete, was not coming back to you after I got out. After what you did for me...standing up to Saul after what happened? Quitting your job for me? I should have figured it out then that you're the only real person in my life."

A smile cracked his face, and gently, so gently he unfolded his arms, stepping closer to her. "You know, if I wasn't the kind of guy who really hated flattery, I'd have you go on."

"I'm sure you would." Gently, she reached up and slid her hands over his shoulders, drawing him closer to her. Then they were kissing, and she tasted salty sweet and felt warm against his body. Her hands met over the middle of his shoulderblades, her fingers slightly digging in to him, a guesture he had always liked. His hands went to her waist and he was gently lifting her up, putting her on the desk, and she tipped back. He got one knee on the desk and pulled his weight up on top of her, in front of everybody like they had no shame.

It was a rather shocking show. Rosco looked away, blushing hotly, Luke averted his eyes and saw Bo doing the same--although his cousin was still fuming, as much as he'd been before. Whatever was going through Bo's head right now, he had no idea.

The kiss finally broke and he gazed down into her face. She smiled up at him in a sleepy, almost sad way. "There you are," he said, nuzzling her cheek. "I was wondering where you'd gotten to."

"Yeah, I was lost for a little bit, Pete," she said in a whispery drawl, pressing her face against his collarbone, "but I'm home now, safe and sound with you." She gazed up at him, in that trusting way that he had always taken to, and she could practically see his heart melt.

He sighed, deeply. "You don't know how much I want to believe this is real, darlin'," he said, pulling off her and drawing her up with him. Her feet hit the floor and she slid a little, unsteady. A hand on her hip helped her regain her balance. "But I'm afraid I gotta go on something more than your word, after that show you put on before."

She didn't seem fazed by this reaction. Instead, she smiled, understanding. "There's something we didn't tell you about upstairs before," she said, nonchalant as if she were recalling an amusing anecdote. "Boss Hogg has a secret exit in his office. Leads into the cellar, where it goes out a back door that's pretty well concealed."

"Henrietta!" came Rosco's outraged cry, and she turned her eyes to him, feigning wide-eyed innocence.

"Well, there is. But I have to warn you," she added without missing a beat, going back to Pete, "Boss has probably already told the marshals outside about it."

"So either they're gonna use it to sneak in or watch it for us sneaking out," Pete mused. "Well, that is a conundrum."

"There's also a small armory up there," she said, "in Rosco's office. Shotguns, mostly, not a lot of ammo but enough."

He smirked at her. "You still a lousy shot?"

"Always," she replied easily. But then she stepped closer to him, her expression turning serious. "Look, I know I said I'm in with you, but I have to tell you, I don't want to go down in history as a cop killer. So I'm hoping most of that ammo will be used just to scare them off."

Pete looked at her, eyebrow scrunched over his right eye. "What, you telling me I can't kill anybody?"

"Pete..." There was a warning in her voice.

"So you don't want me to kill anybody, but you want to escape this little town with me. What exactly are you expecting to happen when we get out?"

"There are plenty of options," she said. "It's a big, wide world, Pete. I'm sure two little people like us could disappear without a problem."

"So you wanna disappear with me now?" His expression was amused as he drew her a little closer to him.

She shrugged. "Got nothin' else to do," she said, giving a little toss of her hair.

"Well, right now you need to get your ass upstairs and show me where those shotguns are," Pete said.

"Sure," Henri-Mae replied, stepping away from him. She moved right up to the jail cell, she extended her hand through the bars. "Rosco, hand over the keys," she ordered softly.

"I won't, I won't!" Rosco spluttered, still furious that Henri-Mae would double-cross them. "I can't believe you, all sweetness and niceness and you go and do this! It's not right!"

She looked at him. Then, she crossed the room, slipped her hand through the bars, and grasped him by the back of his neck, pulling him close to her, as close as the bars would allow. "Rosco," she said, "coming from you, that's funny. You and Boss are the masters of the double cross. Can you imagine what else I'd learn from you?"

"But you ain't supposed to double-cross _us_!" Rosco protested, his hand going over the pocket of his shirt, where the key had been stashed the whole time. .

She extended her hand farther, her expression hardening. "Rosco," she said, voice like steel, "just do what I say and I'll make sure nobody gets hurt, but if you don't let me have those keys I can't promise I'll be able to stop Pete from coming in there and taking them from you."

Rosco considered this, didn't protest when Henri-Mae's hand dipped into the pocket, pulling the key out between her index and middle fingers.

And then she dragged her eyes to the Duke cousins, who had been watching, silently aghast all this while. Her eyes narrowed on Bo, and she gave a dismissive toss of a few of the dark honey locks of her hair over one shoulder. "Somebody around here has some brains," she said scornfully, heading up the stairs. "Come on, Pete, those mice are locked up tight enough, let's get moving."

"Yes ma'am," Pete said, casting a last look at Bo before following.

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It was boring, standing in the back of the building, but it was their job. Watching that door, making sure no one went in or out. So it was a big of excitement when slowly, one of the old wooden doors squeaked open.

A head of rich golden curls appeared, the blue shirt giving her away. It was the deputy, the girl they'd been talking about up front. She looked at them sheepishly. "I hope you're the good guys," she said.

"Ma'am," the first man said, dressed sleekly in clothes that would have easily blended into the green grass and prickly brush. "Excuse me, but we're going to have to ask you to throw out your weapon."

"Oh, I don't have one." She pushed the splintery door higher up, revealing that her belt was in fact, gone. The other extended his hand and grasped her firmly by the wrist, dressed the same as the first man, and pulled her the rest of the way out. However, he did keep his other hand on his weapon as he did so. "That convict guy took everything."

"How did you get away from him?" the first man asked, obviously the one in charge.

"I snuck away," she said. "He's going to come looking for me any--"

There was a noise down the stairs. Both men turned, nearly forgetting about the woman who had just stumbled into their laps, and unholstered their weapons.

"Don't let him get me!" the lady deputy said, slipping behind one of the men, cowering down closer to his waist. He didn't see her hand go for his mace stick, slip it from its place, and shove it into her back pocket. Then, with their attention firmly rivited on the "noise" down below, she lifted up one foot--

And brought it down on the second guy's hamstring.

Surprise was the best element to have in her favor, but it would have done Henri-Mae little good if she hadn't known exactly where to hit him to instantly drive him to his knees. The other one turned on her, shocked, and she was able to drive her elbow right into his chest, the palm of her hand following on exact pressure points. He was in the grass, out cold, as the second one struggled to get his footing back. But she turned on him quickly, slapping the side of her hand against his neck, and he, too, faded to black.

Pete stuck his head out from the open doorway. He looked at the two unconscious men, and then scowled at her. "You're sure they were it?"

"Yeah," she said. "Got a look around when they had their attention on you."

"Why didn't you wait for me?" he asked, emerging fully from the cellar. He handed her the shotgun she'd taken from the weapons cabinet, the one she had claimed was her "baby," brand new and freshly ordered from New York, with a sniper scope and multiple other features that made it a highly sophisticated weapon for Hazzard County.

"What, and let you have all the fun?" she said, slinging the weapon over her shoulder from its single leather strap. "Besides, I told you, no killing."

Peter grumbled something he didn't hear, and they took off toward the wood.

"Where are we going?" Henri-Mae asked, looking around quickly, making sure they weren't being followed.

Peter looked at her over his shoulder. "I'll tell you when there's a little more distance between us and them," he said.


	9. Power Tripping

Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah. Sorry it took so long to get this update posted, my brain blanked out. (I also misspelled brain three times as brian before I got it right, LOL) Anyway, this is another juicy hunk of a chapter and there is only ten and eleven to go. I'm having a real B---h of a time getting the next story done, I was waiting for my break and now that it's here I've got no steam. But luckily this story is already done. So those of you who have worked up a fondness for the Bad Reputation series, please keep an eye out for the next one! Because there will be another one! Really! Anyway...on with the overdue update.

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Rosco had felt something cold slip down his back, as Henri-Mae had grasped his head. But it was when her fingers had gone into the front pocket of his shirt, he distinctly heard the crinkle of something take the place of the keys. When they were gone, up the stairs, he reached his hand toward where the back of his shirt was tucked into his pants, and felt the distinct feel of something small and hard rolling in the loose cloth.

It was a key. More specifically, it was the key to the jail cell -- he could tell by the way it was bent, if by nothing else.

Rosco didn't quite know what to do. To tell the Duke boys seemed almost like treachery -- after all, the idea of them being on opposite sides was so ingrained in his head that this whole while he had not quite been able to think of them all as being in the same situation, especially since they were in separate cells. To _not_ tell the Duke boys seemed like plain stupidity, as they were much more likely to know exactly what to do now than he was -- after all, they were criminals and he wasn't. And then there was the knowledge that Henri-Mae had slipped the key to_ him_, not to Bo or to Luke. Which also had to mean something...

He reached into the shirt pocket and pulled out the note. Written in Henri-Mae's handwriting, brief and scratchy, were the words, "Don't worry. Wait 10 min, then tell Dukes. I'll handle McCabe."

_Great_, he thought. _Just great_. But at least that meant that Henri-Mae wasn't a traitor. Not that Rosco had ever really believed that, but the way the Dukes were going at each other just now, Bo at the end of his tether thinking it was his fault that Henri-Mae had gone bad, Luke aruging that they had more important things to worry about, and it just going on and on until the sheriff could hardly think.

"SHUT UP!" he finally shouted, and both cousins looked at him, taken aback by the sudden outburst. "_Both_ of ye...geeze, can't hear a man thinkin' in his own head. Now both of you just _hush up_ and listen. _I'm_ the sheriff and_ I'm_ in charge here." He was back in Rosco-mode, his hands going up in chicken-wing formation, fingers wiggling nervously at shoulder height. He showed the key, and cocked his head back proudly. "Henri-Mae left it with me."

The relief that sudden flooded Bo's face was like a sunrise. "Then she didn't--" he started, but Luke cut him off, knowing it was no time for that. But when he reached for the key Rosco whipped it back.

"Now see here!" Rosco clucked, "She left it with me, so that shows us who she trusts. And she said to _wait _ten minutes."

"_What_?" Luke spluttered. "When did she--?"

"Well, she left me this note," Rosco said casually, producing the piece of paper. This time, however, it was Bo who managed to get it away from him, snatching it fast.

"Says _'Don't worry. Wait ten minutes, then tell Dukes. I'll handle McCabe_.'" Bo paled. "What does that mean, she'll _handle_ him?"

"I don't wanna know," Luke said. "Rosco, come on, get us out of here!"

"But it hasn't been ten minutes yet!" Rosco protested.

Luke groaned in frustration. "Rosco, you didn't _wait ten minutes _to tell us! So how's this any different?"

Rosco considered it, and then shrugged. "Guess it ain't," Rosco said, and promptly stuck the key into his own lock. It was then that the injured guard, who hadn't said more than two words the whole time, cleared his throat. The boys and Rosco looked to him instinctively, and saw that he was holding a small gun, pointing it right at them.

"Sorry," he said. "Ain't gonna happen."

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It couldn't have taken long for them to discover the unconscious men behind the jail, Henri-Mae reasoned. So she didn't complain at the brisk pace that Pete set. However, she was not sure why the path felt familiar, and struggled to place it, even through the long hike.

And then she saw it. She hadn't laid eyes on it in months, but there was no way she wouldn't have recognized it. Her father's farmhouse. Now it was on Boss' property, and it was empty, all the furniture having been packed up and stored away.

"What are we doing here?" she asked, stopping abruptly in the middle of the gravel road that led up to the front steps. Pete looked at her, his expression strange -- somewhere between amused and guilty.

If Pete ever looked guilty.

"What, you don't want to show me your old stomping grounds?" Pete asked.

"How in the hell did you even know how to _get_ here?" she asked, coming closer to him. Her fingers twitched on the leather strap of the gun, where it hung from her shoulder. Her temper was slipping further by the moment. Something was up and she didn't like it one bit.

"I had directions," he said. Still holding back, his expression had gone from that strange amused guilt to secretive superiority, his eyebrows making tiny little points in his forehead. She was too familiar with that look.

"Pete, you're starting to piss me off," she said, cocking her head to one side. "_Tell_ me what's going on, I want to know _now."_

"I'll _show_ you," he said, turning and walking up the rest of the way. He veered left, going toward to back, around the side, until the old barn was in sight.

It was an ancient barn. Her father had long since had a new one built, as the old one had been sitting there when his grandfather owned the property. But for all its age, it was somewhat of a family heirloom. It's basic structure was sound, so it was used for storage, while the newer barn was much more modern and updated.

Not that either one had been used for anything since her father died. She wondered why Boss hadn't bulldozered the place yet, but shrugged it off as knowing that when Boss was ready with one of his schemes, she'd know. And on top of that, she was somewhat, deep down, relieved that he hadn't gone that way. Yet.

Inside the old barn was something covered with a thick layer of burlap, and underneath that it was clear plastic tarp. It was a car. Nothing too special about it -- an older model, capable of blending in with any sort of traffic. Four doors, manual windows...and a fully loaded trunk, complete with dry goods and pre-packed luggage.

"What the hell is this?" Henri-Mae said, really struggling against her temper now. She wanted nothing less than to shove the butt of her gun into Peter's windpipe until he coughed up the truth. But that wouldn't get her anywhere.

"Come on, you're a smart girl," Peter said, going over to the larger door and pushing it open. There should have been ten inches of cobwebs and dust but it slid open clean.

"This was all planned?" It was unbelievable, and yet it made a twisted kind of sense. Things had fallen into place too perfectly, and after all...she hadn't seen exactly how he'd gotten loose.

"From the get-go," Pete said, eyes locked on hers.

"The guard...the one you left alive," she said. "The one in the cell with Rosco right now. He was your inside man, wasn't he?"

"He's not really hurt," Pete said. "Playing possum, kind of holding down the fort."

"Cute." She nodded appreciatively. "He had me fooled. Only question left is...who planned it?"

Pete smiled at her. He pulled open the door to the driver's side and slid into the seat. "Come on, let's hit the road and I'll tell you everything."

She considered it. "Can I drive? It'll look more realistic, you holding me at gunpoint, in case we hit any trouble."

Pete hesitated a moment, but then gestured toward the car. "Keys are in the ignition," he said. Nodding, she got into the car, as Pete went around to the passenger's side. But then, suddenly, Henri-Mae made a frustrated noise and slapped her palms against her thighs. "What is it?" Pete asked, getting into the seat.

"No key!" she cried, her hand going to where it should have been sitting in the ignition. She reached up to the windshield, pulling down the visor. "Dammit! Where is it? Did it drop on the floor?"

She bent sound, her hands in front of her, feeling the filthy floor. "Damn, nobody's cleaned in here for a while," she muttered. "Check the glove compartment!"

Sighing, Pete pulled open the glove compartment. "Nothing but old maps and generally useless garbage," he reported.

She pulled herself up. "Well...maybe I can hotwire it. But I need something to get the steering wheel stem open. Got any tools?"

"Just a gun," Pete said, a touch of impatience in his voice. "Will that help?"

She gave him a look. "Maybe the trunk has something," she said. "An old screwdriver rolling around."

"Pop the trunk, I'll check," Pete sighed, and she obeyed. He got out of the car and walked around, lifting the lid the rest of the way up and bending down, feeling along the floor of the trunk.

Henri-Mae took a deep breath, pulled her rifle from the backseat up to her chest, and slid out of the car as quietly as possible. But just as she was coming around the side, Pete slammed the trunk down and she was staring down the barrel of a very new and rather compact handgun.

"Please," he said. "Did you _really_ think I was that stupid?"

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Bo and Luke exchanged looks. With the bars between them and the man with the gun, it looked hopeless. But they didn't count on Rosco.

The man got up. He was no longer doubling over his wound -- in fact, he pulled something that had been attached with velcro from his waist, and dropped it on the ground. A packet of sticky red goo, posing as blood. He pulled himself upright, extending his hand. "Pass over the key, please," he said.

Rosco looked down at the key. "You sure you want it?" he said. "Kinda rusty, all bent out of shape now."

The man narrowed his eyes at the sheriff. "Listen, Barney Fief, I don't have any patience for your bullshit. Pass over the key."

"What good's it gonna do you?" Luke said. "They left without you, you're on your own with us. How you going to explain this to the guys outside?"

"Yeah, it'll be a real tragedy when I contact the outside to report that all the hostages are dead, the fugitive escaped with the deputy, and I only escaped by playing possum." He cracked his neck, and flicked his fingers impatiently. "Come on, pass it over."

Rosco extended his hand to put the key in the guy's palm, but just as their fingers were about to meet, Rosco let go of the key and it slipped to the floor. Lightning quick, so much so that the boys were shocked the sheriff had it in him, Rosco seized the other man's hand and pulled him close enough to kick him in the gut. Getting the gun away was cake after that.

The cousins looked to Rosco, impressed as he pinned the man to the ground, getting his hands behind his back. "Thought I was just some dumb hick sheriff?" he grunted as he cuffed the man. "Guess you'll think again next time...if there is a next time!" And he let out his cooing laugh as he got the key back and unlocked his cell.

"Rosco, wait!" Bo and Luke called as the man went right to the telephone. "Let us out!"

"You boys ain't going anywhere," Rosco said dismissively. "This is a matter for law enforcement, and I am the law in this town!"

"Boy's power tripping," Bo muttered.

"Yeah, and forgetful," Luke murmured back. "He left the key in the other lock. Take off your belt. I think I can get it."

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Henri-Mae kept her rifle steady, even with Pete pointing his gun right back at her. So he'd seen through her. It wasn't terribly unexpected, but it was disappointing. "Guess I need to work on my acting," she said.

He nodded. "Guess you do," he agreed, grinning just a touch. "I have to admit, I was hoping we'd be on the road before all of this went down."

"Why?" she asked. "What's wrong with here? Good a place as any."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Really, the old homestead? I thought you'd be dying to get out of here...oh, wait, no, that was your _father_."

His cruel little smirk was too much. "What kind of _game_ are you _playing_?" she demanded, her voice cracking with the tension. She lifted the rifle a little bit higher, remembering that she had put a bullet in the chamber earlier, finger dancing around the trigger.

"I'm not playing a game, Henri-Mae," he said, his voice serious. "I'm the only one here who isn't."

"I'm not playing games," she spat at him.

"Aren't you?" he shot back. "Dressed up in pretty blue, a real member of the law enforcement community? Please...not with _your_ record." His voice had gone stone cold and smooth, almost melodic in its monotone mode.

She rolled her eyes, playing it off although her palms had started to sweat. She was afraid, and she pushed the realization back in to the far reaches of her brain, desperate to ignore it. The last thing she needed right now was going all damsel in distress. "Not this again," she said. "It's getting old."

"Aren't we all?" He sighed.

"Now who's playing games? Why in the hell did you bring me out here if you knew I was faking? To use me as a hostage? Kinda hard to use someone as a hostage when you _arm_ them." She shook her rifle. "And I got this one out of the shelf myself so I know you didn't have time to screw with it."

"You sure?" he asked.

Smoothly, casually, she turned the rifle to the side and fired it against a tree. The bullet rang loud and clear as it exploded the bark. Then priming it again, she brought it back to him. "Yeah, I'm sure," she said. The brief display of power had calmed her nerves a bit.

"Then why didn't you just shoot me?" he asked, his eyes still mocking.

"Pete, I swear to God, you don't tell me what's going on, and _I will!" _she barked.

"Why, when it's so much fun to watch you squirm?" He cocked the hammer of his own gun as she aimed toward him again. "Ah, ah. You had your fun, now it's time for mine."

She had started to tremble. She gripped the handle of the rifle harder, willing it not to show. Taking a breath, she decided it was time for another approach. "How did you know my father was dead?"

The question didn't seem to surprise him. His expression twitched as if he'd been expecting it. "Someone told me," he admitted.

"Who?" she pressed.

He hesitated, which was unusual for him. Reluctance was not one of his usual qualities. "Saul," he said. "Saul told me."

"Saul Townsend?" Her brain started to spin and she willed it back into focus. "How would Saul know?"

"Because when you got out of prison," Pete said, "he was the one who wound up intercepting the phone call you dad made to you, to tell you that he was sick."

Spinning, spinning..."My father called Saul to tell him I was sick?"

"He called to tell you, but you were gone and Saul had arranged it that anyone attempting to contact you in New York would get him. Some kind of safety precaution, to protect you, he said, from anyone coming after you. You had said, after all, that you wanted to get away."

She nodded. It made some sense, but she was dizzy with the other implication. "Saul knew that my father was dying?" she asked, her voice starting to tremble. "Why...why wouldn't he tell me?"

Pete shrugged one shoulder. "Not really sure. But he didn't. And then he gets wind that Daddy actually dies, and you're back here in Hazzard. So he comes to me, and calls in a rather large favor -- I'd be happy to tell you all about it over dinner sometime, but not now -- and arranges all of this."

"For...for what?"

"To bring you back to New York," Pete sighed. "To bring you back to him."

"Back to..." she shook her head. Not comprehending. "To him? For what? Do I owe him money? I didn't _think_ I owed him money..."

Pete was chuckling at her. "You can take the girl out of the small town, but you can't take the small town out of the girl. Come on, baby, you never knew it? How Saul feels about you?"

She shook her head again, as if to deny it. "Don't be stupid, what would Saul want with me--"

It was Pete's turn to roll his eyes. "You're a lot of things, baby, but naive isn't one of them. The only reason he stayed away from you was because of me. He knew if he made a play for you it would piss me off and cause him a lot of trouble he didn't want. But when you came out of jail, wanting nothing to do with me..." Pete shrugged, "well, where else to send you but your favorite place, where Saul can visit you whenever he wants? My theory is, he was planning on coming out much more often, sweep you off your feet eventually, although he had to know you'd make him work for it. Bring you back to New York. I don't think he wanted you to know about Daddy because if you did, home you'd go, and then what chance would he have? You back under Daddy's disapproving eye, the rebellion all gone and a sad little girl in its place." He shrugged. "I never asked him, though, so..."

"So it's all a bunch of bullshit," she spat. "You're insane, Peter McCabe. You need to be locked up--"

"Oh, hush," he said casually, as if they were having a lover's quarrel. "That's not what I'm going to do, you know. Take you back to Saul. Never was my plan. Figured it's a big enough world for two people to hide in, we could go anywhere you wanted--"

Unexpectedly, even to her, she burst out laughing. "_What?_ You're serious? You honest to God want me to _run_ _away with you_? Have you lost your mind?"

His expression sharpened, like a dagger. "I'm getting rather tired of you questioning my mental state," he said, an edge in his voice that did not bode well.

She shook her head, ignoring the warning. "Pete, you're the _last _person on this planet I would_ ever_ think would get the crazy notion in his head of running off into the sunset together. I mean, come on, it's not like we were ever in love."

He stared at her. "Isn't it?"

She shook her head. "Neither one of us ever said it for a reason, you know?"

His cheek twitched. "Maybe I was waiting on you. But I guess absense doesn't make the heart grow fonder, does it?"

She sighed. "Pete, don't stand there and try to make me believe that you actually thought you were in love with--"

He stepped forward, his fist banging down on the trunk in a clear show of anger, his face tightening into a wad of rage. "Maybe I didn't just think it, you know? And don't give me the big bullshit shocked routine...you stayed with me as long as you did for a reason."

She had been startled and taken a step back. She really couldn't believe this. She _could not_ believe what he was telling her. He had become unhinged, it had to be. "Too much time without sex has warped your perspective," she said, almost lightly.

His eyes narrowed at her. "Maybe I should take you back to Saul," he said. "After he sees that you're just a whore, he'll realize you're not worth his time."

The insult was a slam to the stomach, simply because it was totally unexpected. And all her life, Henri-Mae had always fought fire with fire. "You know, Peter," she said, her voice like ice, "half the reason I took that stint in prison was to _get away from you_."

He fired at her. She would have been dead at that second if he hadn't done it at exactly the same moment a helicopter appeared right over them, buzzing and blaring in all its glory, and his aim had been off just enough for her to duck down behind the car. His bullet hit her rifle, the force knocking it from her grip, and she dropped it and scrambled around the car to get as far away from him as possible.

In spite of the whirlybird above them, Pete was focused on her. He fired again, but they were useless shots that fell harmlessly against the dirt. All they served to do was scare her and push her father on. The voices ordering them to lay flat on the ground and put their hands behind their heads was not heard, or rather fused into background noise as Henri-Mae realized with horror that he was chasing her around the car.

The helicopter fired. It barely missed him, but managed to hit the gas tank and cause it to splurt out its contents. Henri-Mae did not bother to look behind her to see if the thing exploded -- she had seen it happen a hundred times in movies and wondered if it would really do it in real life -- but rather she ran for the cover of the woods, and ducked behind a tree to look back.

He was still coming after her. That animal energy snapped and crackled around him, as he got on his hands and knees and expertly dodged whatever other bullets came at him from overhead to pursue her into the woods.

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A/N: Eh, cliffhanger. Oh well. BTW, that "can't hear a man thinkin' in his own head" line was my favorite line of this chapter. Rosco really had a chance to shine a bit, as much in his dialogue as in his actions. He is really so much fun to write.


	10. Bear Traps and Cross Country Biking

Disclaimer: Don't own anything--the Dukes or Pete, 'cause I borrowed him from a Michael Keaton movie. I'm sad, but that's not why. One review for the last chapter. But maybe it was just a slow...month. Okay, I'm partly to blame for being so delayed with the postings...but we're almost at the end here! Next chapter is it! Please, be kind...review:)

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"Negative, negative!" came the voice over the speaker. Marshal Brockson was in his car, his partner riding shotgun, with the white cadillac that Boss always drove with Rosco at the wheel on their tail. Behind them, Lula, Shelly and Tonya followed, and ahead of all of that, Bo and Luke Duke were in the General Lee with Jesse and Daisy in Dixie, all of them listening to the same station. "Target is pursuing Deputy Locke into the woods. We've lost visual."

"Then get it back!" Brockson snapped. "Hogg, can't you get your troublesome civilians out of my way?"

"This is Hogg, feel free to shoot, come back!" Hogg barked into the CB.

"Boss, you don't really mean for that guy to shoot the Duke boys?" Rosco asked.

"I mean for them to shoot that orange nightmare of a car!" Hogg roared. "Don't tell me that being locked up with them has made your head go any softer than it already is!"

"Are the roadblocks in place?" Now it was Marhsal Gregg, his voice a little lower but none less authorative. Brockson was busy snapping at the heels of the General Lee, pushing his old borrowed police vehicle as fast as it could go, which was still not fast enough to pass the General.

"Road blocks have been in place for two hours now, Marshal," came the answer. "But there are a lot of roads in Hazzard, we're checking to make sure we got them all."

"Those roadblocks aren't going to work out here," came Luke's voice over the speaker.

"Get off this line, Mr. Duke," Brockson growled. He'd been fed up with the Dukes from second one -- the exact second they'd come bursting out of the jailhouse, going on about how McCabe had taken the deputy hostage and that they needed help. _They_ needed help...it was _his _case, dammit!

"Now listen to me, Marshal Brockson!" Luke insisted. "I grew up here and if there's one thing I know about this place, it's the roads."

"But they ain't on the road!" That was Daisy, listening to the whole thing. "That guy said they was on foot!"

"From the old Locke farm," Bo said, his voice drained.

Luke glanced at him. "I almost don't _want_ to know," he said.

"Maybe not about that, but there is something else you might want to know." Bo looked rather pale and shaken, but his voice kept going, as steady as his driving foot. He grabbed at the CB and said, "This is Bo Duke to the helicopter pilot, which direction did Deputy Locke take off in, over?"

There was a surprised pause. "Uh...north, I think...yeah, due north."

Bo set the CB back in its holder. "The woods north of her house...I know them. They were Henri-Mae's favorite way to sneak in and out of the farmhouse. We'd go walking there sometimes..."

"Bo, the point," Luke said.

"Old man Locke was never a moonshiner," Bo said, "but he was a beartrapper. Used to get a lot of money for those bear skin rugs, and never have to pay a dime to any butcher. Henri-Mae was raised on bear meat."

"So those woods may still have some old traps in them."

Bo nodded. "And if anyone would know where they are, it'd be Henri-Mae."

"She's leading him into a trap."

"I know a way around the back of the property," Bo said, spinning the wheel and flinging up half the road as the General took a new path. "We maybe we can block him off from the other way."

"If we don't wind up stepping in the bear traps ourselves," Luke pointed out.

"We won't," Bo said. "I was in those woods with her a lot." He shot Luke a quick glance, the corners of his mouth quirking with a memory Luke really didn't want to know about.

"Whatever," the older cousin said. "Just drive."

"Where are they going?" Gregg asked as he watched the General tear off in front of them.

"Don't care, as long as they're out of my way," Brockson replied, pushing the gas pedal to the floor.

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_The two years she spent in prison were the worst two of her life, but she knew well enough to know that they could have been so much worse. Saul had connections everywhere and she was under his protection, so she didn't face any movie-of-the-week horrors of being raped in the shower or beat within an inch of her life in the laundry room. Sure, a few had tried, and been rewarded with a visit to the hospital ward for their efforts._

_For the most part, though, she kept her head down, her business to herself, and stayed as busy as possible until the time was done._

_Pete didn't come to see her. Prisons were his least favorite place on the planet and even the waiting room upset him beyond reason. She didn't mind. She didn't even really care. If pressed, she would have confessed she was relieved. And with Pete out of her vision, no longer clouding up the picture, she could see clearly._

_The day of her release was like a gift from God. It could have been freezing cold and raining sleet and snow and it would have been the most beautiful day of her life. To be able to walk out those doors, dressed in the same clothes she'd come in with, on her own two feet -- it was amazing. _

_She went to the apartment she had shared with Pete. He wasn't home, but her key still fit in the lock. She collected her things, left him a brief note telling him that she was going to leave town, and didn't look back._

_Guilt prickled at her, but the anxiety of what she was about to do was much, much worse, so she shoved it from her thoughts. She went to see Saul._

_He seemed to be expecting her. Tall and stick-thin, Saul was gentile and gentlemanly, wearing starched button-down shirts underneath expensive suits that gleamed when he walked. Nothing was out of place on him -- manicured hands, perfectly hair, thick and dark and grown slightly longer than average,wide brown eyes set almost doe-like, giving him an innocent look that belied his occupation. He had a serious reputation for havinga bad temper, b__ut he was nice to her. He'd always been nice to her. Respectful, delicate, as if she were special. And it gave her courage to ask what she came to ask as she finished her amaretto sour._

_"I want to leave the city," she said from where she sat on his plush leather couch. _

_He looked surprised from where he sat in his favorite chair, and then shrugged. "I guess I can understand that," he said. "I do still owe you a favor, which city would you like?"_

_She wasn't sure if she should show her surprise or not. "I was worried you'd consider your debt to me repaid, what with all the help you've been the last two years."_

_"Help?" He stood up, came over to sit beside her. "You spent two years in prison. On a trumped up charge. I should have had my lawyer shot." As if unconsciously, one of his hands rested on hers, and he looked at her, as if expecting something._

_She squirmed. Why was she suddenly uncomfortable? Like Little Red Riding Hood who was starting to realize harmless little granny was really a wolf in her bedclothes. She felt the urge to leave, but the knowledge of knowing she had nowhere to go held her in place. "Saul, you're too generous. I'm uncomfortable."_

_The boldness of her words surprised her. He took it in coolly, though. "Sweetheart," he said, with a tone of tenderness that made the bottom of her stomach drop out, "if it wasn't for me, none of that shit would ever have happened. I felt responsible. But I still owe you that favor, so...name it."_

_"Like I said, I want to get out of town," she said. "And I don't want to be followed. I really don't want anyone to know where I'm going. But the problem is...I don't know where to go."_

_"So you were thinking maybe I could give you some advice?" he asked, raising one gold-flecked eyebrow. "Or maybe open up an opportunity?"_

_"Whatever you think best," she said, meeting his gaze. It was the old racing confidence she felt at the moment, knowing she was doing something reckless and dangerous, but knowing it was the only thing to do that was worth the risk. _

_"Well, how about Vegas?" Saul said, picking up a baseball from a small holder on the table beside him and tossing it between his hands. _

_"What about it?" she asked. "I like it there, good times..."_

_"What if you could go race there? I know someone, he'd take you in a snap at my word. And he'd never regret it, I can guarantee that."_

_"As long as it's just racing," she said, a suggestive tone in her voice. He smiled at her._

_"I wouldn't do that to you. I can put you on a plane--"_

_"No," she said. "No, I'll drive there."_

_"Drive?" He chuckled. "It's Vegas, baby, it's not around the block--"_

_"I know," she said. "I'm gonna get a bike and drive there. I have some money that I saved and kept hidden. It'll be enough. I just need some time to get out in the open and be...alone."_

_Alone. Out in the open. Two things she had not been in two years. There had always been someone close by, a guard, a cellmate, someone to protect her...and the close gray walls of the prison had not been her friends. She dreamed about being out in the open, on her bike. She swore that the moment she got a set of wheels she would ride her bike until she reached the other end of the country, if that's what it took._

_Vegas was close enough._

_She went, and all the way, she wondered why she had never followed through with her word to her father. She hadn't called him to tell him where she was. Because she didn't want to take the chance that he would come see her. Because he would have. And then he would have seen what she'd become. How she was drying out and suffering from lack of alcohol, how she had taken up smoking and her fingers and turned yellow, and her hair had been cut short. _

_It was shame. Pure shame. She wouldn't return back home until she could show something for herself. Until she was sure she wasn't crawling back there to lick her wounds. The thought of Bo had burned in her mind so many times...how she had blamed him for everything, that if he had just stayed loyal to her, if he had just broken up with her like an honest human being, instead of humiliating her and breaking her heart..._

_Vegas had offered a fresh start. What kind of start, she didn't know, but it would be new. Away from Pete, away from Saul, away from New York and the depths it had dragged her to. Away from Kelly, who hadn't spoken one word to her, hadn't lifted a finger to help her in spite of the loyalty Henri-Mae had shown. And still farther away from Hazzard, a sliver which burned in the back of her mind as if made of silver fire. _

If only she hadn't been so stupid.

What Pete was saying couldn't be true. It just couldn't be. Pete was not a liar, but something...he had his wires crossed. It was _impossible_.

And yet it still nagged at her, a little chant in her head. "Sweetheart," he'd called her. She couldn't ever remember him not calling her that. She struggled in her memory for a time when he'd called someone else that, but nothing came...

No, it was nothing. She was stressed. She was running through the woods, after all, with a madman at her heels, who was very pissed at her. Looked like the "no shooting at girlfriends" taboo was out the window, she thought with a wry smile.

Because she knew these woods.

She found her tree quickly. It was the first tree she'd learned to climb, back before her mother left. She'd told her father to put the bear trap there, after her mother had left. She never wanted to climb that tree again, because she was sure each time she'd look down, she would see her mother's face, looking back up at her, calling her down to dinner.

She stopped a good five feet away. Her foot anxiously patted the ground, looking for the chain. Her toe nudged it, scraping at the rust, and she quickly pushed the leaves back over it. Lightly, deftly, she managed to stretch her foot across the space and get it against the tree trunk, and with a small lunge and more than a little of the skills she'd picked up from Gabrielle, she swung herself up on the first branch.

Up into the branches. Not too high, she wanted him to see her. She got her wish -- she heard his feet padding after her the very second she'd secured her behind on a sturdy limb. She pushed her feet up against the trunk, shifting her weight across the limb, trying to distribute it as much as possible. It was for show -- the foilage didn't cover her and a quick scanning of the area brought his eyes right up to her.

"Little pussy caught in a tree," he taunted, his voice taking on more of a perverse rumble. He strode right over to it.

The snap was a strange sound. It was more like a tearing followed by a crunch. Ages of rust had almost delayed the trigger, but her father's old bear traps had been built to withstand both rain and heat. The spring gave even through the rust, the pressure more than the sharp teeth immobilizing him. The trap caught his leg, just as she knew it would. He let out a strangled little sound, looked down at his bloodied foot, and then glared back up at her.

"You really thought this would work?" he asked her, so conversationally it frightened her.

"I thought it would slow you down," she said.

With a cocky little half-grin, Pete sat down right there in the middle of the clearing, as far as the chain would let him. He lifted the bloodied, injured leg and grasped the trap in both hands.

Even through the rust, it mostly held. But not entirely. Frustration creased his face and he shot one last seething glance up at her before turning his entire attention and strength to the jaws of that trap. Strain and anger mingled on his features, but eventually, age and persistance won out.

The trap gave way.

The jagged teeth had torn into the muscle of his leg, and only then did he see the full damage for what it was. He tried to ignore it, tried to get up, but his body knew unnatural pain, even if he refused to acknowledge it. The momentary surprise as his leg refused to hold even a fraction of his weight was her chance.

She jumped.

She had pushed herself from the trunk of the tree, and used that force to swing her legs back around, bringing them up in front of her as she seemed to fly through the air, short a distance as it was between them. Her feet, both of them, caught him right under the chin, and he tumbled backwards. Unfortunately, so did she, but her time with Gabrielle had not been in vain.

She twisted her body as she fell, getting her hands underneath her. Her forearms took most of the weight as she hit the ground, and she rolled with the force, using it to propel her away.

Pete was faster than she gave him credit for. He was on his feet before she was, blood running from his chin. And he looked more pissed off than she'd ever seen him, or imagined ever seeing him. Which was pretty pissed.

"Gone all crouching tiger, hidden bitch on me, haven't you?" he rasped. She was far enough away to get that last half-second to get to her feet before he came at her, grasping for her hair.

She threw her fist. It was a precisely aimed punch, going straight for a pressure point on his chest. There wasn't a tremendous force behind it, and the second she made contact with him, he gave her a gory smile, mocking her effort --

And then he realized what she'd done.


	11. Nothing On Me

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. Sorry it took so long, but here is the end...and the next story is being written, although it's a teensy bit away from being done. Although with the number of reviews having dropped lately, I'm hoping y'all haven't given up on me. :)

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The General pulled up to a screeching halt in the middle of a back road in Hazzard. There was nothing to distinguish this particular back road from any other, as most of Hazzard was made of back roads. But to Bo, it was familiar.

"Straight shot?" Luke said.

Bo pointed. "This way..." and then hesitation seized him. What if he was wrong? He couldn't afford to be wrong.

Then they heard a gunshot.

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Pete collapsed, but his hand landed on the rifle that had been flung from his fingers during the impact. She didn't hesitate -- Pete was a crack shot, it was a wonder he hadn't gotten her already. Even as his fingers closed on the handle, her foot was down on the barrel, pinning it to the ground. With an inhuman grunt, Pete hefted his weight onto his side, toward her, giving him just the exact amount of leverage he needed to toss her off balance.

It didn't work. Her foot slid but didn't give. She shifted her weight and brought herself down heavy on her knee -- which landed right on his neck, pinning him to the ground. Even the short amount of training she'd gotten had built up some muscle on her and he was surprised at the new weight -- or at least he would have been if she wasn't suddenly pressing hard enough on his jugular to make his head feel like exploding. He let go of the gun and wedged his hands underneath the joint, pushing on it with what strength he had left. It was considerable. She slid backwards, her other foot having been thrown off balance by his sudden release of the gun. She tumbled backwards, her back crunching against the ground and the heavy dead leaves of autumn that made a blanket on the forest floor. She floundered for only a second--

And then realized that Pete was already getting up and going for the gun again. He had it in both hands, and was aiming, pulling back the hammer.

She kicked. He was too close -- the barrel was easily pushed back by the sole of her foot, but it wasn't enough to deter him. The bullet fired anyway, going into a tree, splintering wood almost into their faces, and Pete flinched. Henri-Mae felt the mild spray on her side but knew if she gave for a second he was going to kill her. Clamboring to her feet she pushed on ahead, this time getting the barrel in her hand and closing her fingers on it, in spite of the heat it gave off.

Then she spun. The momentum drove her elbow into his already injured throat, this time getting his windpipe. He stumbled back, but she didn't relent. She threw the gun behind her and turned, getting him in the nose with her other fist, flattening it and feeling the warm spray of blood on her knuckles.

It wasn't enough. She knew Pete well enough to know it wasn't enough. She punched again, and again, sometimes smashing his cheekbones, other times getting his ribcage, until he was just a little ball on the ground.

It still wasn't enough. The flesh on her knuckles had torn and her hands bled her own blood, and she scrambled in the ground for something...and old wire, trappers were always laying wire all through these woods. She found what she was looking for and yanked it up.

It was time to finish this, for good.

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It had been too long since he'd been in these woods, but Bo's ears didn't deceive him. Only he'd forgotten how long the distance was, how thick the woods had been, and how many hours he and Henri-Mae had rambled through these trees without ever seeming to find the end of them. At a dead run, it felt like it was taking forever, and for a moment he was sure he'd made a terrible mistake--

And then they broke into a place where the trees thinned a bit, and there was Henri-Mae, sitting on some roots that had grown up thick and wild and tangled together, two trees forever locked in an embrace. She was brusied and bloody, her hair was a mass of leaves and bramble, but she was smiling.

"Hey boys," she said. "You got here just in time."

And there was Peter McCabe, hog tied, hand behind his back, feet in the air, ankles bound to his wrists. He was swearing the ugliest words and cursing Henri-Mae and everyone she'd ever known, but he lacked the air to do it effectively so it came out as wheezing and muttering.

Luke was heaving behind him, winded. Both of them looked to Henri-Mae and then to Pete, in amazement. Then they realized what Henri-Mae was doing.

She was smoking a cigarette.

"What?" she said innocently, standing up and stubbing the butt out on her shoe. "Don't worry, it's not a habit."

The boys looked at McCabe.

"Oh, him." She shrugged. "Come on, Bo, when are you going to learn that Boss'll make an honest day's wage before I need you to rescue me?"

Bo's head snapped up to her. "That's not true. What about with Farrell and those corrupt Feds?"

"Technically, it was Gabrielle who rescued me," she pointed out. "You just drove the getaway car. And I suppose, technically, it was Gabrielle who rescued me again." She gestured fleetingly at Pete. "And Daddy, who showed me how to make a good knot." She was still smiling, a little sadly this time, but then she sighed and clapped her bloodied hands together. "I suppose you two could make yourselves useful and drag him back to the Marshals. I know they'll at least be happy to see him."

"Nobody move!" came the shout, and instantly, they were surrounded.

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The Marshal who questioned her looked like he'd stepped out of a cartoon. Agent Brockson had thick, curly blond hair that hung nearly in a mullet, and big buldging muscles that looked as if they couldn't possibly be natural, and to top it off, he had a voice as deep as a frog's croak in the bottom of the swamp.

"So it was all a set-up?" He had arched a thin brown eyebrow at her skeptically. In his fingers, long and thick as they were -- it was amazing a guy this size could find a suit that would fit him without bursting apart at the seams -- held the note she'd written to Rosco.

"That is what I've been trying to explain for the last half-hour," Henri-Mae said, trying to maintain a polite tone of voice. Her knuckles had been numb before from the effect of slamming them so hard against something as unyeilding as Pete's body, but now the adreneline was gone and the torn skin was starting to itch. Wrapped as her hands were in thick gauze, it was impossible to scratch them effectively, and it was making her cranky.

"And it was you who captured the prisoner, and tied him up in that questionable fashion?"

Now it was her turn to arch an eyebrow. "Questionable?" she echoed. "He tried to kill me."

"Well, you betrayed him. It was a natural reaction."

Now both eyebrows went up. "Whose side are you on, anyway?" she demanded.

He silenced her with a sharp look -- or tried to, as silencing Henri-Mae was as unlikely as making Boss forgive a loan.

"Well, everyone else seems to vouch for you, Deputy Locke," he said with a resigned sigh. "But for your sake I hope nobody ever tries to pull off a stunt like this again. I don't think you could get as lucky twice in a row."

"Lucky Locke, that's what they called me," she said sweetly. "Thanks for your concern Marhsal."

He nodded dismissively. "All right, we're heading back. Prisoner is in lock-down and we'll investigate these implications you've made as to the nature of his release. And this time I'll make sure he gets flown right into his new cell. No more of this road trip bullshit."

"A wise decision, Marhsal," she agreed, but he was already walking away. As if on cue, Lula Marie, Shelly, and Tonya came up, all three with very different expressions on their faces. Tonya looked guilty, Shelly looked shocked, and Lula Marie just looked plain pissed.

"You've got some explaining to do," Lula said.

"I don't know," Henri-Mae said, eyes going to Tonya. "Looks like someone already told you that story."

"Then it's true?" Shelly asked.

Henri-Mae nodded, although she had the decency to dip her chin enough to make her look repentent.

"Well," Lula Marie said with a shrug, "I guess you had your reasons for not talking about New York."

"Would you have, given the situation?" Tonya defended her.

"_I _wouldn't have--" But Lula stopped herself, biting back the words. There had been much more in that comment. She drew a breath and looked back at Henri-Mae. "So is that it? Any other dirty secrets you've been keeping?"

"A lot of them," Henri-Mae said nonchalantly, facing Lula squarely.

"Fair enough," Lula conceeded, "but I just hope no more of them catch up to you. At least not like this one did."

Henri-Mae thought about what Pete had said about Saul. She gave an imperceptible shudder. "So do I," she agreed.

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The commotion blew over. The whole thing had taken place in a matter of hours in a single day, and the Marshals cleaned up the mess quickly. By that evening, everyone was at the Boars Nest, drinking watered down beer and exchanging stories, listening to Rosco talk about what it was like inside the county jail. He made himself up to be a big hero, keeping calm and control of the situation, and nobody who had actually been involved had the heart to counterdict him. Uncle Jesse, Daisy, Cooter and all the Duke's various friends were so happy that the boys had made it out safe and alive, their table made the most commotion, and the beer kept flowing in round after round. Nobody worried much, as it was nigh impossible to get drunk on Boss' watered down suds.

There were two people who weren't much on the partying atmosphere, and both of them sat in Boss Hogg's office, contemplating each other grimly.

"I knew when I hired you that you had a reputation, Henri-Mae," Boss said. "Not a very good one."

"Be blunt, Boss," Henri-Mae said. "My reputation is as bad as it gets."

The fat man chuckled. "Don't flatter yourself dearie. After tangling with that wildcat, I even feel like giving the Dukes a break for a while."

Henri-Mae cracked the tiniest of smiles. "You make it sound like _you_ were dealing with Peter McCabe the whole time."

"McCabe? I was talkin' about that Federal Marshal, Sam Brockson. That boy was so clean he squeaked when he walked. I can't never tolerate anybody too honest."

It broke the tension. Both of them chuckled a little more heartily.

"I won't be upset if you fire me," Henri-Mae said. "I'll understand it, really. The chickens came home to roost and it was my fault."

"I wouldn't go that far," Boss said. "No, Henri-Mae, your job is safe...I just want to know if there are any other seriously dangerous criminals that might come looking for you in Hazzard."

It was unlike Boss to be this fatherly with her. Henri-Mae shifted uncomfortably. "I can't make any promises, Boss," she said. "I didn't leave behind any enemies that I knew of. Not even Pete. It came down to him wanting me to choose between my old life and my new one. I chose my new one." She paused. "Maybe I should quit."

"Quit?"

"If anything like this ever happens again..." she shook her head, her voice trailing off. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, Boss. And sometimes this deputy badge is more like a bullseye target than a shield."

Boss considered her. "If it makes you feel any better, I don't plan on letting any more prison trucks come through Hazzard."

"It does a bit," she said.

"Well, I ain't got any more money for any raises--"

She blurted out a laugh. "Boss, I'm talking about quitting and you're talking about raises?" She stood up. "The last thing I'd want from you is more money!"

Boss gave her one of his little grins. "Well, see, that makes you all the more dear to my heart, sugar plum."

She put her hands on her hips. "You really _don't_ want me to quit, do you?"

"Well, Rosco is pretty attached to you," Boss said, finger in his hat. "And the last thing in the world I need is more grief from Lulu over discrimination...so no, I don't want you to quit. Although I must admit that since your anger against a particular Duke boy has cooled off, you haven't been nearly living up to my expectations."

"Sorry, Boss, I'll be sure to work on that."

He waved his hand at her. "Go. Go on and get something to eat, drink, whatever. Put this mess behind you and let's forget it ever happened."

She glanced toward the office door. She had long since changed out of her uniform, which had been soiled and torn and wrinkled beyond recognition, and was now in a plan pair of jeans and a T-shirt. "If it's all the same, I think I'll go home," she said, heading for the back door. "I'm exhausted. Really. G'night, Boss."

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If the girls had fawned over Duke boys in the past, they were in double force tonight. It was one thing for the Dukes to have thwarted one of Boss' schemes, but to have gone up against a real big-city criminal? That was news.

Luke took it all in stride. Bo was his usual charming, ladies-man self, but after a few hours, and no sign of Henri-Mae anywhere, he felt desperate for a breath of fresh air. As soon as he set foot outside, however, he caught a familiar shadow coming around the corner toward her bike.

"Henri-Mae?" he called, squinting in the dark. The figure stopped, turning toward him.

"Hey Bo," she said, her voice much more relaxed than he'd expected. He'd been absolutely sure she was furious at him for what he'd said to her in that jail cell, and he was determined to say something to her...whether it was an apology or not, he wasn't sure until this moment.

He crossed the small parking lot, filled far beyond its capacity with local cars. Most people had just walked to the Boar's Nest, not expecting to be fit to drive when they left. She didn't run away from him, but instead met him half-way at the heavy wooden log bench that sat in the little island where the gas station used to be. She sat down on it, and he sat down beside her.

"I wanted to talk to you," he said, feeling more hesitant than he expected. She was just looking at him, a strange kind of resolution in her eyes.

"About what?"

"I wanted to say I was sorry," he got out in a rush. "I never should have said those things to you."

"Why not? You were right," she said plainly.

"No, I wasn't, Henri-Mae. None of this was your fault."

To his surprise, she laughed. "Oh Bo," she said, but it wasn't with the kind of condescension he might have expected. It was with a wistfulness that came from deep within. "You _were_ right. Maybe not in exactly the way you put it at the time, but ultimately? Yeah." She nodded, gazing off down the road, trees still and silent one moment, rustling from an autumn breeze the next. "Running away from home...was just stupid." She looked at him. "I mean, really, really, stupid. I was so self-centered and immature...so proud and blind and such a whiny little bitch..."

"Henri-Mae," Bo admonished, but she ignored him.

"No, it's true, every word." She looked at him, those ocean-blue eyes wide and sincere. "I shouldn't have left home, not the way I did. I shouldn't have stayed away. If I hadn't, so many things would have been different..." _My father might even still be alive,_ she added silently, but didn't say it aloud. "I never would have gotten involved with Peter McCabe, and none of this would ever have happened." She shrugged. "So you see, you were right. Plain and simple."

"It's _not _that simple," Bo said, but found he couldn't thwart her arguement. She slid off the log and stood up, stretching in the cool evening.

"But it's okay," she said. "I made my bed, I'm lying in it. I still have my job, and I still have my bike, and I still have tomorrow." She smiled. "If I spend the rest of my life regretting my past, I'll lose all of that too, and what good would that do me?"

Bo grinned at her. "So you're going to become an honest officer now?"

"I wouldn't go that far," she teased.

"Henri-Mae," Bo said, getting off the bench and stepping toward her as she went to leave, "even so. I am sorry. For the way I acted."

She considered him, and then, she walked back to him and kissed him on the cheek. She put her arms around him and hugged him tightly for a moment. "So am I," she said.

As she pulled away, Bo gripped her arm. "Come on, you have to come inside," he insisted. "Everyone in there thinks you're a hero. And all your girlfriends are in there, and I keep hearing little Molly asking her mother where you are."

She sighed deeply, and then said, after a considerable pause, "Maybe for a minute. Okay."

And they went back into the Boar's Nest.

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On a little side note, I was thinking that Boss' celebrity speedtrap could have managed to snag Shawn Colvin on this particular occasion, and she could have sang the song, "Nothin' On Me," which I felt was pretty appropriate for the closing of this story.


End file.
